


Redeemed

by ceterisparibus



Series: Ella [8]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Avocados at Law, But also, Catholicism, Depression, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Italian Food, Kid Fic, Legal Drama, Matt is a Lawyer, Mental Health Issues, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pepper Spray, Philosophy, Psychology, Whump, and so much whump, as in there's a baby not as in people have turned into kids, discussion of suicide, less of a human disaster Matt Murdock???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 67,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22480648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/pseuds/ceterisparibus
Summary: The Ella series continues!Certain that Dex could be better if he just got the right help, Matt convinces Foggy to take his case - despite pressure from the NYPD, the media, and the rest of the DA's office, and despite the fact that he has a new baby to take care of, and despite the fact that Dex's issues run a lot deeper than first suspected. At least Matt has help: from Foggy despite his reservations, from Karen who'll cause mostly the right kind of trouble (for once), and from Stick's other ex pupil who was the first to see that there's more to Dex than his crimes.
Relationships: Claire Temple/Original Male Character(s), Franklin "Foggy" Nelson/Marci Stahl, Matt Murdock/Karen Page
Series: Ella [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188625
Comments: 174
Kudos: 91





	1. All the Good You See in Me Will Never be Good Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elanor__Tasha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elanor__Tasha/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to yet another installment of Ella!
> 
> To those of you returning, let the record reflect that I ADORE each and every one of you.
> 
> To those of you just jumping in, a quick and spoilery recap:  
> \- Matt and Foggy took on a case to protect young Ella Conway from an abusive father and a neglectful mother. Ella is now Ella Vallier, adopted by Micah and Maeva Vallier who discovered Matt’s identity and, well, have basically adopted him, too.  
> \- Matt accidentally killed Ella’s dad, a hemophiliac.  
> \- Matt got a labradoodle puppy named Frank. <3  
> \- Stone, one of Stick’s old pupils, showed up. At first, his goal was to “finish what Stick started.” He slowly realized that Matt’s way of life was better and began shedding the things he learned from Stick.  
> \- Dex was sprung from prison first by Gao, whom Stone killed, and then by Vanessa. Both Gao and Vanessa aimed Dex at Matt et al., but Stone eventually kidnapped Dex and resolved to “fix him.”  
> \- Matt proposed to Karen immediately after she killed Vanessa. They got married and became pregnant just as Fisk realized Vanessa was dead. With depleted resources, Fisk tried to go after Karen through the legal system via Blake Tower, but Matt took a deal in her place.  
> \- Matt was charged with numerous illegal activities as Daredevil, but Marci took his case while Foggy was in a coma (he kinda got shot), and when Foggy returned to consciousness he and Marci together argued that Matt acted in defense of others. The jury returned a not guilty verdict, but now everyone knows Matt is Daredevil—and they know about his senses!  
> \- Dex got arrested (again) after a panic attack and flashback caused him to shoot at Stone (who lived, but did that whole let-everyone-who-cares-about-you-think-you’re-dead-due-to-exaggerated-feelings-of-guilt thing before he came back). Matt and Foggy are now preparing to represent Dex with an insanity defense.  
> \- An unknown assassin killed Fisk in prison with devil’s hell, a hallucinogenic fear drug originally distributed by Vanessa.  
> \- Stone fell head-over-heels for Claire after she saved Matt’s life from devil’s hell and she finally started returning his affections, although she’s well aware that he has a LOT of growing to do. Now Stone has reclaimed his original name, Emiliano (dude is Italian), but has yet to rebuild his own identity.  
> \- Karen gave birth to a baby girl named Penelope Grace Murdock.
> 
> Chapter title from "Never Be Enough" by Sent by Ravens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DDR_Px-EJw).

Matt

It was just before dawn, judging by the muffled sounds of the city outside Matt’s bedroom window. He slowly opened his eyes. He needed to make an earlier start today if he wanted to meet Maggie before getting to the prison to meet Dex.

Soft sounds came from the living room. Rolling over, Matt got up and found Karen on the leather couch, whispering to their daughter. Frank was beside them, having expanded her protectiveness over Karen to include protectiveness over the baby; Matt’s three girls were inseparable. “Hey,” Matt started to say. His voice came out scratchy. He coughed and tried again. “Good morning.”

She gave a hushed laugh. “Good morning. She just finished feeding.”

“Yeah? You could’ve woken me up.” He’d acclimated over the two months since they brought their daughter home, and now he no longer startled awake every time Gracie—Foggy called her Gracie once, and it stuck—made a noise. This meant Karen usually woke up before he did and fed Gracie herself. A mother’s instinct trumped enhanced senses, apparently. It was unfair, though. The whole reason they were both bottle and breast-feeding was to give Karen a break. (Well, that and the fact that Matt absolutely coveted those quiet moments alone with his daughter.)

(But part of him was undeniably monitoring Karen closely, looking for any sign that she…that she felt the way Maggie once did. Everything seemed fine. So far.)

Karen yawned. “You were sleeping.”

Knowing better than to argue with her about this yet again, Matt simply shrugged and leaned down to kiss his wife. “You going back to sleep, or can I make you coffee?”

“Thought you were meeting your mom at a coffee shop?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t make you some.”

Her tired smile was clear in her voice. “Deal. Hey, how’s Stone?”

“Emiliano,” Matt corrected, even though the name still felt foreign on his tongue.

“Right, sorry. I’ve just been thinking.”

“Yeah?” Matt headed into the kitchen and started pushing buttons on the coffee machine. It was muscle memory at this point.

“Is he still staying in that old apartment?”

“Far as I know. Why?”

“Just…” Gracie made a disgruntled noise, and Karen shifted her into a better position. “If he’s really trying this whole be-a-good-person thing, maybe he should start by…not living in an apartment paid for by stolen money. Including money looted off dead bodies.”

“I’m not actually sure the money’s stolen. He might just be vaguely threatening the landowner at this point.”

“Well, then at least he’s being ethical,” she said dryly.

The coffee machine sputtered weakly. Matt gave it a small shake, which seemed to do the trick. “You have a better idea?”

“Yeah, actually. He could stay with us.”

Matt whipped around. “What?”

“He could stay with us,” she repeated calmly.

He gaped at her. Not that he thought Karen or Gracie would be in danger. It was just that…sharing the apartment with Emiliano would be complicated. Messy. Dex’s trial was going to be chaotic enough. Was it too much to ask for Matt to be able to come home to a place that was peaceful and stable?

What was he thinking? Emiliano was trying so hard to figure out how to mold himself into something Stick hadn’t shaped, and Matt of all people knew how hard that was. How could he be so selfish?

“Matt.” Karen got to her feet. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk yourself into something self-sacrificial and stupid.”

“ _You’re_ the one who wants Emiliano to live with us!”

“Yes,” she said calmly, “but I also want you to be okay with it. It’s a big commitment, especially with…” She jiggled Gracie to make her point.

Matt turned completely to face her, inexplicably overwhelmed by the breadth of her concern. For Emiliano, for Matt, for their child. “Are you sure _you’re_ not the one being too self-sacrificial?”

“I like Emiliano,” she said simply. “Plus, I could make him go shopping for me.”

Matt grinned. “Then there’s an upside.” He leaned in and kissed her again. “I gotta go or I’ll be late, but we’ll talk about this more, okay? Find the best option for everyone.”

She smiled against his mouth. “I love you.”

He wanted to freeze that moment and live in it forever, which was too sentimental a thought to express this early in the morning if at all, ever, so he just kissed her more firmly, scratched Frank behind the ears, and made sure to pour her coffee before he left.

~

It was actually easier, these days, to forego the cane. It drew too much attention. He was far from the only person in New York who used one, but he could tell from the heartrates around him whenever he went out that everyone who saw him was making the same correct assumption. But he still wore the glasses. At least people had stopped interrupting him on the street to thank him for saving their cousin’s sister’s life. Mostly.

Weird that it was so much easier to accept thanks for his work as a lawyer than for his work as Daredevil, even now that he’d gotten used to the idea of people like Karen and Foggy being associated with the vigilante. There had to be another underlying reason. Maybe this therapist could help him figure it out. His next appointment was next week. It was gonna get hard making time for therapy as Dex’s trial progressed, but Matt was determined.

(Now that Dr. Richland knew he was Daredevil…well, there was a whole new minefield of things for them to talk about. Matt wished he could go further faster. Then again, maybe baby steps was the better way to navigate a minefield.)

He got to the coffee shop early, but he could already hear Maggie making her way down the sidewalk about two blocks down. She was on the phone with someone, talking about some event or other coming up. He listened as her voice grew closer and closer until, finally, she slipped into the shop and came up behind him.

“How far away could you hear me?” she asked.

“Right when you were talking about one of your volunteers calling in sick.”

She let out a quiet laugh, more breath than sound. “Incredible.”

“Coffee?” he prompted.

He ordered their drinks and, once served, set both their cups on a quiet table in the corner. Then he hesitated for one awkward moment while she grabbed napkins before pulling out a chair out for her. Maggie waited just long enough to let him know that she was eyeing him thoughtfully, but then she sat down and didn’t say a word. He hurried to his own seat and cleared his throat. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“I’m certainly not going to refuse anyone offering to buy me coffee.”

He grinned briefly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She blew lightly on her cup. “Speaking of minds, what’s on yours?”

He quickly took in the room; the place was small, but there was no one sitting close by—only a handful of patrons scattered throughout, all either in a conversation with someone else or wearing headphones. Matt could hear the music. Still, he lowered his voice. “Uh, Dex,” he said. “His case. We finally have everything from his first PD, and we’ve got all the Brady materials from the DA…”

“Are you sure the prosecution isn’t holding something back?” she asked shrewdly.

Matt felt a tiny flare of pride. “Yeah, actually. I haven’t heard anyone lying, and Foggy and I both like McDuffie. Respect her. I’ve never known her to do anything underhanded.”

“Good,” Maggie said fervently. “This city has had enough corruption for a lifetime.”

“So now Foggy and I are ready to really start putting Dex’s case together, and…it’s gonna be complicated. There’s no denying that he did any of the acts he’s been accused of. And no one will believe his actions were justified. From what I can tell, _Dex_ doesn’t even believe his actions were justified.”

There was an anxious tapping sound as Maggie drummed her fingers on the table. “So what’s his defense? Does he _have_ a defense?”

There was something validating about the simple fact that Maggie was so concerned. Something that told Matt this really was the right thing to do. “We think so, actually. Some affirmative defenses, like the one I used when I was on trial, are justifications. But other affirmative defenses are excuses. We as society are saying that we don’t _agree_ with what was done, but we…understand it. Basically.”

“And you think Dex has one of those?”

“Maybe. Diminished capacity. It’s the insanity defense in New York. We just have to show that Dex couldn’t appreciate the consequences or wrongness of his actions due to a mental disease or defect.”

“Disease,” she echoed, sounding disturbed.

“It’s the legal name for it, that’s all.” But the mere fact that she was disturbed by such a callous term was part of why he’d asked her here. “If such a defense will work, we’ll need Dex to meet with a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist. We’ll need evidence of how…how capable he is of thinking through things. Or at least, how capable he was at the time of his crimes. And I know you’ve talked with him about some of that, so…”

“I’m not a licensed psychologist,” she said quickly.

“I know,” he said just as quickly. “But he trusts you. Opened up to you. And frankly, Foggy and I are way out of our depth here. So literally _anything_ you can tell us about…about explaining this to him, and finding him a good psychologist, and helping him navigate this entire process…”

“Right.” She sipped her coffee as if buying herself time to thoroughly consider the matter. Matt spent the next few minutes listening absently to a heated debate in another corner of the coffee shop about what would have happened if Darth Vader had lived at the end of Star Wars, whether he could’ve truly turned around, whether such a story would be one worth telling at all. Finally, Maggie set her cup aside. “He needs to be listened to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the people he trusts are the people who listen to him,” she said simply. “You can’t just come in and tell him what to do or think—even if he goes along with it. If you try to direct him without first _knowing_ him, you’ll be no different than Fisk or Vanessa or Madam Gao in his eyes—even though you’re actually trying to help him.”

Matt nodded slowly. “We can do that.”

“And keep him as informed as possible, the whole way through. Let him be part of the conversation. I know he isn’t a lawyer, but he needs to feel like you trust him.”

There were ethical guidelines about that, about the kinds of decisions reserved for clients and where an attorney’s authority began and ended. He and Foggy were going to have to be extra careful in applying those guidelines to Dex. “Aside from the legal side of things, what else can we do to help him?”

She sighed. “There’s a lot you can do, and there’s a lot that a good psychologist can do. But, Matthew…”

“Yeah?”

She waited for a second, as if debating the best way to say this. “He needs more help than you can offer. You know that, right?”

Grimacing, Matt wrapped his hands around the warm cup. “Do I have to like it?”

“As long as you believe it.” Reaching out, she set her hand over his. “You’re not enough to save him from everything he’s facing. Only God can do that.”

“But if God’s using me—”

“ _You_ won’t be enough,” she said sharply.

Matt pulled back.

“That’s not an insult! None of us are enough for everything he’s dealing with.”

“I know.” That didn’t mean it didn’t sting.

She leaned closer. “I’m going to worry about you. Just so you know.”

“Mom.”

“Don’t set expectations for yourself that you can’t reach, or you’ll just be disappointed in yourself. Leave some room for God to work.”

“All right, I will,” he promised.

“You will?” she echoed doubtfully.

“I will.” He offered a smile. “And you can come yell at me if you think I’m, you know, trying to do everything myself.”

“Good,” she sniffed. “I’ll do that.”

“Thanks, Mom. Really.” He ran his hand over his watch and stood up. “I have to go. But I’ll keep you updated and I’ll try to find a time for you to visit him.”

“Matthew?” He waited for her as she slid out of her seat. Her hand rested lightly on his arm. “I’m so proud of you.”

He didn’t realize he was smiling until after he’d left the coffee shop.

The smile faded, though, when his cab dropped him off at the jail. The dank smell. The harsh echoes. The scrape of doors and locks. Matt was no stranger to jails and prisons, but the contrast between the comfort of his apartment with Karen and Gracie and this other world was somehow more jarring than normal. He locked onto the sound of Foggy’s approaching footsteps.

“You okay, buddy?” Foggy greeted him.

Matt discretely sniffed the air and ran his hand quickly up his own side. No, he was definitely not bleeding visibly. “I’m fine.”

“You look tense.”

Matt did his best to school his features into a neutral expression. “Just a lot to think about, with this.”

Foggy made a noncommittal sound and said nothing else, just waited. Probably for Matt to say something that would give him an excuse to question the wisdom of working so closely with the guy who’d stolen Daredevil’s name, murdered Matt’s priest, and tried at one point or another to murder almost everyone else that Matt cared about. Foggy obviously wasn’t thrilled about this arrangement. Not that he’d said anything yet. But he was never hard for Matt to read.

So when Matt remained carefully silent, Foggy finally shrugged. “Let’s do this, then.”

They checked in for their appointment and a guard led them through meandering halls to the visitation room. It was a higher-security jail than the one holding most of Matt and Foggy’s criminal clients, and Matt found himself keeping track of every exit, noting where all the guards kept pass cards, wondering how he’d protect Foggy if things went south in here.

He shook his head at himself. Fisk was dead. No need to panic. Nothing was gonna happen.

They reached the visitation room, and Matt took a second to readjust to the voices bouncing off every surface. Hushed conversations about the realities of being in jail: jobs lost, rent due, kids missing their parents. Dex, at least, had been in the system long enough by now that his old life was just…gone. Which wasn’t _good_ , but it was easier than scrambling to hold onto it as it slipped away. Maybe.

Foggy elbowed him. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but maybe you could try looking _slightly_ less like someone just stabbed your dog.”

“I don’t look—”

“Melancholic? Yes, you do. Here comes our guy—please pretend to have some smidgeon of hope.”

“I have hope,” Matt muttered under his breath, pulling back a chair and wincing at the horrendous scraping noise.

“That’s your hopeful face?” Foggy scoffed. “Now you look like someone stabbed _you_.”

“I’ll stab you in a minute,” Matt shot back.

“Don’t talk about stabbing people in a jail, Matt, geeze.”

They were still bickering when Dex was seated in front of them. Matt automatically responded to whatever sarcastic thing Foggy just said even as he surreptitiously analyzed Dex. He’d been favoring his left leg as he walked, and now Matt could sense a bruise spreading there, that patch of skin warmer than the rest.

Matt turned to face Dex, cutting Foggy off. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Dex said immediately. His heart skipped like a nervous cat’s.

Matt opened his mouth to question him, but Foggy flicked his thigh under the table. Yeah, interrogating Dex about lying probably wasn’t the best way to start the meeting. Matt cleared his throat. “So, we’ve looked through everything your old PD gave us. Is there anything else you can tell us now that you don’t think was in your file?”

Dex shrugged heavily. “I dunno. The PD didn’t really talk to me much.”

Under the table, Matt flicked Foggy back.

“Well,” Foggy said, “we definitely wanna hear your story. And our job is to represent you, which means we don’t wanna do anything you don’t want us to do. In fact, it’s up to you whether we take a deal or go to trial at all.”

“I have a choice?” Dex asked suspiciously.

“We don’t know what the interim DA’s offering yet,” Matt explained, “but we’re meeting with her at the end of this week. Still, it’s better for us to go into it with a defense ready.”

Foggy nodded along. “Even if we don’t go to trial, we need to show that we think we _can_ go to trial. Gives us more leverage.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dex said, reminding Matt that before Dex let himself be turned into Fisk’s weapon he’d been a federal agent. He wasn’t totally unfamiliar with the legal process. Still. Matt now knew from personal experience how disorienting it was to be on the other side of this table even with his education and experience. He didn’t want to think about what Dex must be thinking right now.

Matt cleared his throat again. “In my understanding of precedent and the facts as we have them, you seem to have a decent case. We can’t promise you anything, but we think you have a shot. Especially considering that Blake Tower stepped down.”

“He never liked us,” Foggy explained conspiratorially.

“The governor appointed Ms. Kirsten McDuffie as the interim DA,” Matt swept on. “She’s fair. Decent. Not a hard marker.”

“Means she won’t push for the hardest charge she can get,” Foggy jumped in to translate.

“But she won’t cut you any slack, not if she thinks you’ll put people in danger. Which is only part of the reason why we’re gonna need you to be entirely forthright with us from here on out.”

“Sure,” Dex said immediately.

“Seriously,” Foggy warned. “Anything you hold back could come back to bite us later on. And by us, we mostly mean you.”

“You think I’m not on board with this? I’ll give you everything you need.”

It was interesting; his heartrate was jumping around enough that normally, Matt would think he was lying. But the note of resolve in his voice didn’t seem forced. Dex wasn’t that good of an actor, was he? Maybe his heart was only beating so fast because he was nervous?

Before Matt could press him, the doors leading deeper into the jail opened as the guards led someone through. Matt wouldn’t have given it another thought except that the prisoner’s heart started going crazy as soon as his head turned in Matt’s direction—and the sudden tension in his muscles told Matt it wasn’t because the guy was hoping for an autograph.

“Foggy,” Matt warned under his breath. “One o’clock.”

Foggy slightly tilted his head, but Dex completely _swiveled_ in his seat, hands forming fists in his lap. Which maybe wouldn’t have been a problem…except that the new prisoner noticed. His adrenaline spiked; he took a jerky step forward—and Dex shot to his feet.

“Dex,” Matt barked, half-standing before a guard grabbed Dex.

It flipped a switch. Dex twisted and bucked, throwing out an elbow that caught the guard on the chin, snapping his head back. His hands loosened and Dex’s hand reached for a holster at his hip that wasn’t there.

People were yelling, but Matt ignored them all as he lunged around the table at Dex. Dex’s attention was on the guards and the threatening prisoner, making it easy for Matt to strike the mastoid just behind Dex’s ear—a swift jab with two fingers. A harder strike could cause death; as it was, Dex just collapsed unconscious.

“Whoa,” Foggy breathed.

The guards descended in a swarm, some on Dex and some on Matt. Matt raised his hands, head lowered even as he was slammed against the wall. Lockdown procedure ensued. People shouted; chairs scraped over the floor. Matt already had a headache.

About two hours later, he’d given a statement and was released. The officials were mostly just thankful he’d subdued Dex before things escalated. Still, they had to do their due diligence. Matt understood. Understanding didn’t make it less annoying, though.

Foggy was waiting for him in the lobby, bearing sandwiches that had gone cold.

“Sorry,” Matt muttered.

“I’m ignoring that completely unwarranted apology,” Foggy announced, handing Matt a sandwich.

“Thanks.” Matt sniffed the sandwich. The meat smelled suspicious.

This was gonna be a hell of a case.

~

Emiliano

Emiliano truthfully had no idea what to do with Claire. She wanted to give him a chance, but he hoped she knew what that might actually look like because he unequivocally did not.

The truth was, he hadn’t been on a date or had a real romantic interest since he was fifteen. So, of course, he’d texted Matty for advice. Dinner, Matty had suggested. Buying her dinner was a safe option. “Have two places in mind,” Matty said, “but ask if there’s anywhere else she’d prefer.” And so Emiliano had asked if she was free the previous night. She wasn’t, but she was free tonight, and he didn’t exactly have any scheduling conflicts.

Therefore, Emiliano donned the cleanest of his (two) jackets and made sure none of his knives were visible and even tried to do something with his hair. Bit difficult, that, given that he didn’t have anything other than a comb, and…and that was another thing he needed to think about, joining a list of over a hundred other things, and he suddenly wondered if he could find a way to avoid Claire until he sorted the rest of his life out first, until he could present her with something that was actually, as she put it, a decent human being.

Except that she’d kissed him before the church, and she’d accepted him again even after he abandoned her for two months, so surely whatever he was now was already good enough?

(What did “good enough” even mean? And even if she _did_ think he was good enough now, he doubted that she would be content if he didn’t continue progressing. But he had no idea how to progress, how to know if he was moving in the right direction and in the right way, and what if he did something wrong and didn’t realize until it was too late?)

He glared at himself in his mirror. The root of his anxiety was simply a collection of questions. All he needed to do was find the answers. That was fine. He could do that.

Besides, it was a bit of a walk from the apartment where he was staying to hers so there really wasn’t time for panicking. He headed out. One of the shops he passed had a display of flowers outside, and he suddenly wondered if he should stop and buy some for her, followed by the much more distracting thought of what Stick would say about buying someone a handful of plants that were just going to die.

He’d probably consider it an accurate metaphor for love.

And now half of Emiliano wanted to buy them anyway just to spite Stick, but half of him didn’t want a gift for Claire to be tainted by memories of Stick at all, and he realized he wasn’t even sure if she liked flowers, maybe she was too practical, and then he remembered that she was allergic to cats and decided it was better to just leave the flowers alone.

He walked away from the shop with a weird sense of shame, as if he’d been somehow defeated by spring bouquets.

It was a relief to show up at her door and put everything else behind her, everything except how to make her feel admired. He knocked, and she opened the door, and he forgot briefly how to breathe.

Her hair pulled up and back, still swishing from her momentum, and she was wearing a rich red shirt that was cut just low enough to be distracting. But the most remarkable thing about her were her eyes, dark and delighted. “You made it,” she said.

Small talk. “Barely,” he said. “I had to stop briefly to thwart a resurrection.”

She stared at him, and he suddenly remembered that the fact that she was used to Matty did not necessarily mean she was used to the Hand and, besides, he probably shouldn’t joke about the Hand when she wanted him to be a normal person.

He shifted his weight in her doorway. “I meant…”

“You made it,” she repeated, one eyebrow rising.

“Yes,” he replied. That seemed safe enough.

For a heart-stopping second, she didn’t respond, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Then she cocked a hip, eyes sparkling. “So, what are we doing today?” There was a challenge in her voice, but also a hint of mischief.

He was relieved he’d come prepared with an answer. “I thought I could buy you dinner.”

“Really?” Her head tilted. “Okay. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…is that money actually yours?”

Emiliano frowned. “At the moment?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Was it yours _originally?_ ”

“Currency frequently exchanges hands, I’m told.”

Her lips quirked. “All right, how about this. We stay in and I make you something delicious, and then we just talk.”

Emiliano told himself he hadn’t disappointed her, not really. After all, Matty suggested asking for her preference. “That sounds…good. What should we talk about?”

“Something easy,” she decided, which made him instantly wonder what she’d classify as difficult. “What do you do in your spare time, when you’re not running around with weapons?”

Shrugging, he watched her carefully for her reaction as she started moving around her kitchen, fiddling with the oven and getting out pans and ingredients. “Survive. Eat insects.”

She whirled around to stare at him.

“That was a joke,” he said softly. “I like to read.”

She laughed a little. “Oh. Because I _can_ deal with bugs, but…”

“A single grasshopper has more protein than six eggs,” he informed her.

“Have you really eaten a grasshopper?” She sounded disgustedly delighted.

“On occasion,” he admitted. “They’re not too bad except for the aftertaste.”

“Well.” She expertly greased up a casserole dish. “I promise this won’t have an aftertaste.”

“What are you making?” He leaned against the side of the fridge, which seemed a safe place. He wouldn’t be in the way, but he wanted to be close.

“Lasagna,” she announced.

He raised his eyebrows, intrigued. He was actually quite experienced with lasagna. Not that he’d had it for the past twenty years or so, but he’d made it for himself and Gio during their childhood. It was tasteful, and healthy, and could easily be reheated.

But then Claire retrieved several…bananas? Emiliano frowned suspiciously, yet kept his thoughts to himself as she peeled the fruit and cut them diagonally. But when she spread them in the pan, he couldn’t stop himself.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he blurted out.

She glanced askance at him as she coolly added another piece of banana to the pan. “Making lasagna.”

“But—that’s not— _what?_ ”

“Have you seriously never had pastelón before?”

“What,” he repeated helplessly.

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and pointed at the other side of the refrigerator. “There’s a list of my family’s classic recipes. Take a look and see what you wanna try next time.”

He wandered around to the other side of the refrigerator and there it was: a handwritten list of Spanish words. He wanted to try everything. And his heart leapt a little at the echo of her voice in his head, promising a next time.

“Here.” Her voice came from just at his shoulder, surprising him so that he almost jumped (and had to consciously keep from making a fist). She nudged his arm with a wine glass. “We may as well drink while I’m making this. Since next comes the worst part of dating.”

He was too tense to enjoy hearing her use the word _dating_. “And what’s that?”

She smirked. “Small talk.”

He thought it best to defer to her expertise. “You can start.”

“Good choice, I like that.” She turned back to prepping the meal. “First question: what do you do for fun? Do you _still_ read? I mean, I kinda get the sense that…”

He fidgeted with his glass. “I still enjoy reading. But I don’t do it as often, no.” There wasn’t the time. And it felt slightly lazy. Reading didn’t accomplish anything. Not for Stick’s war or anything else.

“So what do you do for fun now?”

Tilting his head, he considered. He did not drink his wine. “Practicing with Matty is fun,” he offered.

Spinning back to face him, she rose both eyebrows, but the reaction seemed involuntary—not intended to convey a message. “You’ve only been practicing with him for, what, a year, right?”

“Sounds right, yes.”

She squinted. “So…what did you do before that? You were pretty eager to go to a library a while back. I take it you like to read?”

He was surprised she remembered. Surprised, and intimidated, and touched. “Yes.”

“What kinds of books?”

He shrugged. “Anything with a good plot.”

“Come on.” She slipped some of the banana-like ingredients into a pan to fry. “Give me something specific.”

He didn’t want to drink, but he didn’t know what else to do. And she was waiting for an answer. He sighed. “I don’t…”

She still waited, poking at the pan but glancing over her shoulder at him.

“I don’t remember,” he admitted very quietly.

“You…don’t remember what you read?”

He remembered concepts. Phrases. A title here and there. Nothing substantial. He couldn’t remember what it was, exactly, that so engaged his heart and mind when he turned the worn pages of the old library books. “I don’t remember enough,” he said, hoping she’d leave it alone.

She nodded slowly. “That’s okay. Maybe we can figure it out?”

“We?”

She actually looked excited as she scooped the banana things out (they were definitely not bananas) and spread them on a paper towel to drain. “We can dig up all the books that sound familiar. Read them, talk about them. Maybe that’ll jog something?”

He had no faith that such an experiment would be successful—for several reasons. He only mentioned the most obvious. “They’re in Italian.”

Turning around, leaned against the counter, crossed her arms over her chest, and held his gaze. “Emiliano, look. You were how old when Stick found you?”

Why did this feel like confession? “Fourteen.”

Something softened her eyes. Pity? Emiliano fought the urge to recoil. “How long were you with him?” she asked.

“Ten years.” The words came out dry, flat, rough.

“And after he left, you—”

“He didn’t leave,” Emiliano cut in, wincing internally at the harshness of his voice. He tried to gentle it. “I completed my training.”

She nodded again. “So after you completed your training, you’ve just been…running around the world on missions, right?”

“More or less.”

“Let me get this straight. When everyone else was eighteen and making stupid mistakes and figuring out what they thought about friends and politics and the world, you were off with Stick? And when everyone else was getting jobs and hobbies and falling in love, you were off on missions?”

“It wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound.”

Her dark eyes searched his face. “I’m not gonna argue with you on that. All I’m saying is, it doesn’t sound like you’ve had the chance to actually figure out who _you_ are, what _you_ think, what you even believe in.”

He believed in her.

“So, I have a proposal for you.”

“Yes?”

“You do whatever you have to so you can figure all of that out, and I help you however I can. I mean…” She blinked up at him, gentle but looking almost nervous now. “If you want me to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diminished capacity, guys! That's what they were kinda-sorta trying to do in Frank Castle's defense, except the show did a weird mishmash of insanity-esque defenses that honestly didn't make sense to me. Anyway, so I'm gonna TRY to do a proper "insanity" defense here. We'll see how it goes.


	2. Straight Lines Never Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "We All Look Elsewhere" by The Classic Crime (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHIO6tJd3JA) which is SUCH a Dex song, all right?

Dex

The cell was clean. That was good. Except that maybe it’d be better if it were dirty, because at least then he’d have something to fix. Something to _do_.

Then again, he should probably try not to move too much right now.

He hurt. Especially in his shoulder. It was no longer dislocated—the prison nurse did the bare minimum when he put him back together a week or so ago—but it was still sore.

And he touched his jaw, gingerly. New bruising there. An injury that would be impossible to hide from Matt and Nelson. Dex sighed. It wasn’t like he couldn’t take care of himself in here. It was just that…the guards kinda hated him. And he couldn’t even blame them. The last thing he needed was to give them an excuse. So he defended himself just enough to keep from getting injure enough to die in here, but let the guards vent their fury on him. Sometimes they had other prisoners do it; sometimes they did it themselves. See, Dex knew they had to get it outta their system one way or another. It wasn’t worth getting into that with Matt and Nelson. They were already in over their heads trying to defend him legally. He knew that.

Nelson had been talking about the insanity defense for weeks now. Well, he never _called_ it that. But that was what it was. It made Dex’s ears ring. He wasn’t insane. His internal compass wasn’t broken. That was what Dr. Mercer said, and she never lied to him.

But Dex couldn’t exactly disagree with Nelson’s strategy. Nelson said it was the only shot Dex had. Besides, what if Dex disagreed and Nelson lost patience?

It already seemed like Nelson wasn’t thrilled to be helping him. And Matt was clearly _forcing_ himself to help with his case. Which wasn’t fair. Yeah, Dex went too far. Way too far. He’d hurt Matt and people Matt cared about. But Matt wasn’t exactly an innocent little lamb either.

None of that was the point.

The point was, Dex couldn’t exactly afford to rock the boat.

Maybe an insanity defense would end with Dex in a padded cell. It didn’t sound like freedom was an option for him either way and a padded cell sounded worse than death. He’d have to find a way to end things on his own if it came to that. But he wasn't there yet. For now, he didn’t want to risk losing what he had. Which meant he had to focus on doing whatever he could to keep people in his life. Nelson, Matt, Sister Maggie. Even Stone, if Stone was ever able to visit. If Stone _wanted_ to visit.

Matt said he did. Matt said Stone just couldn’t visit because he’d done even _more_ illegal things than Dex ever did—but Stone hadn’t gotten caught. And Stone hadn’t teamed up with Wilson Fisk; that probably made a difference, too. But Matt said Stone wanted to see him. Except that didn’t make any sense. Why would Stone want to see the man who’d shot him, even after Stone did so much for him?

(At least Stone was _alive_.)

Still, Matt was probably just lying about Stone to make Dex feel better. And if Dex pretended to believe it, Matt would be happier. So Dex pretended to believe it and pretended to agree with Nelson’s defense and pretended that he was okay.

And pretended.

And pretended.

~

Foggy

All right, the Friends of Superheroes Club wasn’t the most formal thing in the world. They (Foggy, Matt, Peter, Ned, and Michelle) met up whenever their schedules aligned, which was rare. And then they mostly just ate food and hung out. The kids asked Foggy and Matt for lots of stories, but none of it really got down to the _problems_ with being friends of a superhero. Which was apparently the unspoken secret reason for meeting at all: the kids wanted to know how to be friends with each other when one of them ran around at night with a mask.

Honestly, Foggy wasn’t sure either he or Matt should really be trusted with helping with this kinda thing, but it wasn’t like Peter had a lot of other options. It wasn’t like any of the Avengers had a secret identity, and after Congress finally rejected the Sokovia Accords, they weren’t even criminals.

So, acknowledging that he and Matt were pretty much the only people who could really help Peter this way, Foggy figured he’d just have to try to be a lot more grown-up than he felt. How hard could that be? For now, he was mostly trying to steer the stories towards vague life lessons (that mostly circled around the general advice of: don’t lie to your friends) while he and Matt pretended that talking about this stuff didn’t still sometimes hurt.

Tonight, though, things were pretty chill. Michelle was asking about the stupidest excuse Matt had come up with to explain away his various visible injuries, and Matt was sheepishly recounting that one time when he’d cracked under Karen’s scrutiny and blurted out some story about being hit in the face with the door from the financial office next door. It’d almost sent Karen on a warpath to their very innocent neighbors.

Foggy, to his shame, had seriously considered grabbing some popcorn, unable to decide at the time which would be more hilarious: watching Karen bite the heads off some unsuspecting accountants or watch Matt shrivel into a ball in guilt over the repercussions of his actions. But eventually Foggy figured office peace was probably more important than his own entertainment, so he’d stepped in to diffuse things.

Anyway, Foggy headed into the kitchen to grab more soda while Matt told the story, only to realize as he pulled his drink out of the fridge that Peter had followed him. (Silently, of course, because Matt was teaching Peter to creep around like a cat to make people bump their heads on the shelves of their fridges, apparently.)

“Ow,” Foggy grumbled, rubbing the top of his head. “You want a refill?”

“Not really.” Peter glanced down at Foggy’s drink, then back up.

Well, Foggy was used to that thing Matt sometimes did, where he just kinda hovered around someone when he wanted to say or ask something but wasn’t sure if he was allowed to, so he kept his voice casual when he asked, “What’s up?”

“It’s just, um…” Peter averted his eyes. “I love being Spiderman. I love helping people. But sometimes I just wanna…never mind.”

Uh-uh, not so fast, kid. Foggy lowered his voice. Not that anyone else was listening anyway, except maybe Matt, but Matt was doing a great job at multitasking and, incidentally, keeping everyone else’s attention. (Or maybe Peter’s friends were just pretending not to notice so Peter could have this conversation, in which case Foggy would say they were already doing an A+ job at being friends with a superhero.) “Wanna what?” Foggy pressed.

Peter visibly chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I think Queens is getting worse. Now that, y’know, Fisk is dead, it’s like all the bad guys are thinking they can get a piece of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Matt hasn’t said anything about that.”

Peter cocked his head at him. “Would he? To you?”

Foggy’s first reaction was to bristle internally. He shut that down fast, though, and just let himself feel chagrinned. “I _thought_ he would.” Not that Foggy could run around helping with the bad guys, not like Stone could. But still. They were best friends.

(Weren’t they?)

Foggy quickly shut the jealousy down, too. Besides, this wasn’t about him. “So why is a power vacuum in Hell’s Kitchen making Queens worse?”

“You know in dodge ball where there’s only one ball, and no one’s brave enough to go for it first? The bad guys are all hanging out in the cities _around_ Hell’s Kitchen. Like they know the first group that steps over the line will get shot down by the others.” A disturbingly wicked glint lit Peter’s eyes. “Or by Daredevil.”

“Gotcha.” But that didn’t explain what was going on with Peter. “So you were saying…?”

A small, nervous smile appeared and disappeared so fast Foggy barely saw it. “Saying what?”

“I dunno, you didn’t finish. Something about loving being Spiderman, but…?”

Peter dropped his eyes to his shoes. “Yeah. I guess sometimes I just want…a break. To be normal, you know? Like…to go to parties and stuff without bringing my suit with me in case I hear a scream.”

Foggy felt a pang at the guilty sincerity in the kid’s voice. He also remembered not too long ago having to convince Peter not to give up his normal life in pursuit of superheroing. He glanced across the room to where Michelle was laughing with Ned. No surprise Peter’s priorities had shifted.

Foggy cleared his throat. “You know, maybe instead of you helping Matt all the time, he should help you.”

Peter wrinkled his nose. “I’m _not_ helping Matt all the time.”

“Aren’t you? Seems like you spend half your nights running around Hell’s Kitchen these days.”

“Because he had a _baby_ ,” Peter insisted, looking affronted.

Which, hey, Foggy was glad that Peter understood that family should come first. Foggy just wished Peter applied that logic to himself a bit more often. “Still. I don’t get why you have to be the only superhero in Queen’s.”

“If you meet anyone else who’s been bit by a radioactive spider, lemme know.”

Foggy pretended to nod thoughtfully, but he was thinking about something else entirely. It really wasn’t fair that Peter had to lone wolf it out in Queen’s. By Foggy’s count, there were already too many cooks in the…Hell’s Kitchen. Matt, Jessica Jones, Frank Castle sometimes, and now even Stone all running around. Sure, there was the power vacuum or whatever to fill. But if Peter was right, the vigilantes might be even more effective if they widened their territory a bit. Maybe they could spend more nights helping the kid out.

“Foggy?” Peter asked suspiciously.

“It’s cool,” Foggy said, trying to sound hip or whatever. “I’ll take care of it.”

~

The next day was Saturday, and Foggy and Marci miraculously had two hours where they were both free at the same time. Well, they’d put in a lot of effort to making that happen. It still felt miraculous, though.

But these two hours were important. These two hours were about finishing what they’d started…way back before Foggy got shot and Karen got arrested and Matt got publicly outed as Daredevil.

They were going puppy hunting.

“Y’know, I would’ve thought you were a cat person,” Foggy remarked, driving along with Marci in the passenger seat and the radio humming low in the background.

“Because of my intelligence?” Marci asked slyly.

“Because you’re standoffish but turn mean when you don’t get attention.”

She glared and didn’t dignify that with a response; she changed the subject instead. “How’s Peter? Looked like he was trying to glean some of your wisdom last night.”

Wisdom. Yeah, right. “He’s been talking about wanting help in Queen’s.”

Marci looked askance at him. “Really?” she asked dubiously. “He said that?”

“Well…he said he wanted to spend less time superheroing. Which is basically the same thing.”

“Hmm. That’s surprising.”

“Not if you factor in Michelle.”

Her eyes lit up. “ _Oh_.”

Foggy grinned, weirdly proud of the teenager’s love life. It felt like being an uncle if his nephews were older. “Yeah. She’s brilliant. About as scary smart as you.”

“And you think Peter can handle that?” Marci asked. The words might look waspish on paper, but Foggy knew they came from a place of actual concern for the kid.

“Actually, yeah. He’s smart, too. Just…more nerdy, less street-smarty.” Foggy rolled through a stop sign. What, they were running late and there were worse crimes you could commit with a car.

“Well.” She reached out to shut off the music, which meant the conversation was getting serious. “Sounds like we need to make sure he has enough time to take her on a date.”

“I’d volunteer myself,” Foggy admitted sheepishly, “but I don’t think many criminals would run away even if I started yelling at them.”

“You could take your baseball bat.”

Yeah, and have it stolen and used against him. No, thanks.

“He needs backup,” Marci decided.

Foggy nodded. Exactly what he’d been thinking.

She tapped her finger to her chin. “What about…that Stone guy?”

“ _Exactly_ what I was thinking!”

“So are you going to ask him yourself?”

Foggy concentrated on the road. “What?”

“Stone,” she said dryly. “You realize you’d have to actually talk to him, right.”

“We’ve…talked,” Foggy said stupidly.

“When you’re asking a favor?”

Technically, Foggy had gotten pretty bossy with Stone that one time when Stone testified for Matt. But everyone knew that was because Karen had blackmailed him, not because Foggy had such a good rapport with Matt’s ninja friend. “In case you’ve forgotten,” Foggy said, “I basically make my living in peddling favors.”

“And it’s cute, but I think this’ll be different.”

She was probably right, but no way was he admitting that. “Challenge accepted,” he said confidently, turning off onto a side road.

The weird lady who named all her dogs after desserts had sold all her puppies, so Foggy and Marci had to look elsewhere. Foggy was a bit relieved. Like maybe her weirdness would’ve rubbed off on her dogs.

So now they showed up at the house of the new breeders, a nice old couple who lived out in Brooklyn and had a Captain America flag in their yard. They plied Foggy and Marci with coffee and a tray of dainty, iced lemon cookies and before taking them into a back room where a baby gate kept the labradoodle puppies enclosed. They were darker than Matt’s dog, almost a honey color, and swarmed around like so many fluffy bumble bees.

The old man carefully held back the puppy gate so Marci and Foggy could get in, scooping up one of the puppies when the brave creature made an escape attempt.

“This fellow,” the old man said ruefully. “Just can’t stay put.”

The little guy was smaller than most of the others. Maybe the runt? And he wriggled constantly in the weathered hands of his breeder. Even when he was set back down with the rest of his littermates, he had to poke his nose through the gate to test whether it would _really_ keep him in place.

Foggy found himself keeping an eye on that particular puppy even as he and Marci sat down in the middle of the swarm. Marci started picking up individual puppies, inspecting them almost clinically. Doing a good job pretending her heart wasn’t melting. But Foggy saw through her.

She must’ve noticed him watching her because she tossed her hair back. “So how’s the case going, Foggy Bear?”

He didn’t really wanna think about work right now, but he put up with it because he knew she’d have an easier time actually letting herself emotionally bond with cute creatures if she could pretend to be focusing on something else. “Surreal,” Foggy admitted.

Marci cocked an eyebrow at him. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Foggy held out his hand; one puppy sniffed him, then bounced away to play with a toy. Oh, well. “It’s not like I don’t think we have a good case. Dex definitely has a screw loose. Or ten.”

“Or twenty.”

“Yeah, but it’s like…” He made a face, trying to articulate it. “He’s this assassin that Fisk dug up? A hired gun. Who ran around in the devil suit and killed people with, like, post-its.”

“You defended Frank Castle,” Marci pointed out.

“Because someone needed to stop Reyes from stomping all over our justice system!” Matt was the one all worried about what would actually happen to Frank Castle. Well, Matt and Karen. Or maybe Karen was more worried about Frank Castle getting whatever _he_ thought was justice, regardless of whether or not that was…actually justice. Foggy shook his head to clear it. “Not like I wanted him dead,” he added hurriedly. “Just…that case was complicated enough, is all I’m saying.”

“As long as Matt doesn’t run off and leave you to deal with everything by yourself again.”

Foggy picked up a puppy and screwed his eyes up as it licked his nose. “He won’t.”

Marci hummed skeptically.

Foggy turned towards her. “Seriously. He’s really figured out how to balance law and everything else.” Plus, now that his identity had been common knowledge for _months_ , he’d stopped panicking that some criminal affected by Daredevil was about to murder Foggy for revenge or something. “And this case is pushing all the right buttons for him. Lost cause, Daredevil connections—all of it.”

“Maybe he really will stick it out, then.”

Foggy nodded, setting the puppy down when it started wriggling excessively and picking up another. This was the little one who’d been trying so hard to escape. Foggy couldn’t help feeling drawn to its feistiness. “I’m just worried, though. ’Cause Dex…he’s not just any defendant, you know?”

“Why,” Marci said, “because he’s deranged?”

“I mean, yeah, but…he killed Matt’s priest, Marci. And he tried to kill Matt and Karen, and he was shooting at _Ella_ in a _church_ , and he went after _us_ in that restaurant. Like, that’s just…” Shifting the puppy into the crook of his elbow, he rubbed at his eyes.

“Evil?”

“Personal,” he said quietly. “Really, really personal. And I don’t think Matt’s stopped to think about what that really means.”

Marci wrinkled her nose when the puppy in her hands tried to lick her face. “Isn’t that basically the same problem you guys had when you first took Ella’s case? And that turned out all right.”

Kinda sorta. They ended up with Ella in their lives, which Foggy wouldn’t trade for anything. But they’d both made a lot of mistakes figuring out how to sort everything out. And…Matt had ended up killing a man. So. “It’ll be fine,” he said gamely. “We’ll set better boundaries this timee. And he’s got a kid now, so maybe that’ll…help him keep perspective or something, I dunno.”

“And you?” Marci gazed at him, like he was the only thing in the room despite the fact that h was surrounded by several much cuter things. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Foggy looked down at the puppy in his hands to avoid getting lost in the intensity of her blue stare. He still couldn’t help feeling like he’d been pushed into this case. First by Stone, and then because Matt had been _freaking out_ when Dex opened fire in a church. Last time he’d lost it in a church, he’d killed Father Lantom. And sure, no one died this time, but that was because Stone was a ninja. It was a fluke.

And besides, Foggy still remembered it. Hiding in that room at the _Bulletin_. Watching sweet Karen aim a gun at the door because she knew it was gonna come down to Dex’s lives or theirs. Hearing the screams from people outside, people Foggy hadn’t been able to save because he wasn’t a hero like Matt. People who’d _died_ while Foggy got to live, and now Foggy was turning around to defend their murderer.

When Matt had his head on straight, he was a pretty good moral compass. He’d always been the one to steer Foggy towards loving people more than safety or comfort; no denying that. But when Matt’s judgment was off, it was _way_ off. And right now, Foggy didn’t know where Matt’s head really was at all. Which left Foggy on his own to figure out what was the Right Thing To Do.

And he didn’t even know where to start.

“Foggy Bear?” Marci asked.

Sighing, Foggy buried his face in puppy fur. The little guy’s tail wagged appreciatively, brushing against Foggy’s cheek. “I dunno. I guess for now I’ll just…go along with it.”

“Until something goes wrong?” Marci asked skeptically.

He chewed on his lip. “Pretty much. Yeah.”

~

Emiliano

The night air was brisk but not too cold, and the lights in this part of town were dingy enough that if he looked up, he could actually see a star or two through the thin mask he wore over his eyes. (He didn’t care of criminals knew what _he_ looked like, but what if someone recognized him when he was with Claire?) When he was a kid, he and Gio used to camp in the mountains sometimes. They were never fully prepared and something always went wrong, but he remembered looking up at night to see the sky ablaze with white lights, as if a child had been given too much freedom to throw glitter at an inky black page.

He wondered briefly if Matty had gotten to see anything like that, back when he had sight.

If he’d never left Hell’s Kitchen, probably not.

The thought was saddening, dimming the brief joy that had accompanied the memories. Emiliano grimaced. This was what he got for caring about someone.

Said someone was currently jogging alongside Emiliano over rooftops and through alleys, but Matty cocked his head at Emiliano, surely picking up on the change in his mood.

“I smelled something strange,” Emiliano said defensively.

Matty shrugged, no further explanation needed.

They’d taken to going out together at night when they could. For the criminals, they were establishing that there were two vigilantes now instead of one in the hopes of increasing deterrence. Privately, Emiliano also appreciated these ventures because Matty invariably showed him some new shortcut or other that Emiliano doubted he would discover on his own for at least another year.

“There’s something,” Matty murmured suddenly. Thanks to the mask, Emiliano couldn’t _see_ the way his eyes narrowed as he locked onto prey, but the focus was apparent in the rest of his body. The way his steps changed from light and relaxed to quick staccatos, the way his shoulders curved in as if he was about to raise his fists into guard.

Then Matty sneezed.

“Got a cold?” Emiliano asked in mock-sympathy.

Jaw twitching to display his displeasure, Matty shook his head. “Pepper spray. His first victim must’ve warded him off.”

“And yet he didn’t learn his lesson.”

Well, that was what they were for.

A second later, Emiliano heard glass crunching. He wasn’t sure why that was so alarming to Matty until they got within view of the shattered window of a run-down loan agency. Their quarry, a boorish looking man, was already halfway through the window.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Matty remarked.

The man spun around so fast that he cut his own hand on a jagged piece of glass. Emiliano appreciated the irony and the smell of blood.

Without a word between them, Emiliano and Matty split up, taking opposite directions to encircle their target, effortlessly keeping in step with each other. The man’s breathing grew shallow with panic. He angled himself towards Emiliano, probably hopeful that this new vigilante would be easier to escape than Daredevil. Emiliano was looking forward to proving him wrong.

Matty caught the slight movement and quickened his pace, setting up a perfect flank attack. The man twitched and Emiliano heard what Matty was too focused to notice: the _click_ of something heavy and metal partly hollow under his jacket.

Wait—the criminal wasn’t the victim of the pepper spray. It was _his_ pepper spray.

“Matty!” Emiliano shouted.

The warning was too late. The man whipped out the can and sprayed it directly in Matty’s face, who reared backwards with his mouth twisted in a soundless scream.

As for Emiliano, he wasn’t even under the spray, yet the smell made his eyes and throat burn. Holding his breath, he lunged forward, knocking the can from the man’s hands and cracking his elbow against the man’s knows. Blood flowed freely. Unfortunately, Emiliano was too distracted to entirely enjoy the sight.

He shoved the man onto the ground, added a kick to the jaw to fully incapacitate him, and turned his attention to Matty, who’d dropped to his knees and was now pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes.

Over his mask.

“Matty, Matty, no.” Crouching in front of him, Emiliano reached for his hands and tried to peel them back. Tried. Matty was not cooperative. “I need to take your mask off, it’s saturated.” An obvious fact that should not need to be stated.

But Matty simply pitched himself forward into a ball. He also did not appear to be breathing.

“ _Perfetto cretino,_ ” Emiliano muttered under his breath. “ _Sto cercando di aiutarti._ Calm down and let me take your mask off!”

It wasn’t that Matty was actually capable of listening, but he was also still not breathing, and his lack of strength allowed Emiliano to finally peel his fingers back and rip off the mask. Matty’s eyes were tightly closed, his face streaked with red and tears.

“Matty. Matty. You have to breathe. Breathe for me, Matty.”

Matty just shook his head, eyes still squeezed closed while his throat convulsed. Whether he was trying to breathe or trying to throw up, it was impossible to tell.

Fortunately, Emiliano was not unfamiliar with pepper spray. Stick had once awakened him with pepper spray, a lesson that proved useful on one particular mission in Argentina. Matty needed soap to wash out the spray, and milk to soothe the burning sensation. And although this dilapidated part of the city was not exactly suburban, the closest location to those two things short of a gas station store was the Valliers’ home if they just took one of Matty’s shortcuts.

“Let’s go, Matty, come on.” Emiliano tugged him to his feet, which at least jarred him enough that he remembered how to breathe. Of course, he was only breathing in shallow, painful little gasps, dangerously close to hyperventilating, but it was better than nothing. Movement seemed to help him work past the pain.

It should’ve taken five minutes to get to the Vallier’s place. Instead, it took ten. Matty kept stumbling and occasionally stopping to press the heels of his palms to his eyes. He tripped over two curbs and almost walked into a streetlight. Emiliano did not want to speculate as to what havoc the pepper spray was wreaking on his so-called world on fire.

It was only when they reached the Vallier’s house that Emiliano remembered how late it was, and remembered that normal people weren’t usually awake at three in the morning, and that normal people were generally upset to be awakened at three in the morning. He should have gone to Claire who would certainly be annoyed but was also…used to this. In all the chaos, Emiliano had briefly forgotten that the Valliers had not actually chosen to be invaded by so much chaos.

But now that they’d stopped moving, Matty had crumpled down to the ground again, unable to choke back a whimpering sound.

Caught between two possible evils, waking the Valliers or leaving Matty to suffer, Emiliano chose what he hoped was the lesser. He knocked loudly.

In less than a minute, Micah opened the door. Maeva was behind him with her handgun lowered to her side. Emiliano felt a stab of guilt—he hadn’t accounted for the fact that nightly disturbances undoubtedly had a more sinister meaning for them now after their home had been besieged. Ella stood at the bottom of the stairs in blindingly orange pajams, her curly hair sticking up in every possible direction, leaning forward on her toes like she hadn’t been given permission to come all the way down yet.

“The hell happened?” Micah asked.

“He’s fine,” Emiliano said quickly. “He got pepper sprayed in the face. I need soap and milk.”

Micah stared dumbly at them. “What?”

Ella, blessed child, leapt into action, darting off towards the nearest bathroom. Maeva took her cue from her daughter and whirled around to dash into the kitchen. Emiliano got Matty inside and tried to nudge him towards the nearest chair, but Matty elected to sink to the floor where he stood, stuffing his fist into his mouth to stifle those horrible sounds he kept trying to make.

Micah looked utterly helpless. “Pepper spray?”

Emiliano nodded. “I also need two towels.”

“Right, uh…” Micah turned around and almost crashed into Ella, who’d brought back an entire bottle of hand soap.

Not ideal, but it would do. Still, Matty must have smelled it or something, because he flinched.

She thrust the soap into Emiliano’s hands. “Will this work?”

“Thank you, Ella. Matty, take a _breath_.”

Matty exhaled shakily.

Finally, Micah and Maeva returned bearing their respective items. Maeva had wisely brought along a bowl as well. Emiliano wouldn’t have bothered; but then, it wasn’t his floor he risked splashing with milk. Working efficiently, he soaked the first towel in soap and started scrubbing at Matty’s face, removing the oil residue that water alone would be unable to affect. Matty’s face suggested that this new torture was an unbearable addition to the first, but he didn’t try to get away even though he probably could have managed it.

Finally, Matty began to calm. His breathing returned almost to normal, although his eyes were bloodshot when he opened them, blinking tearfully and squinting. He opened his mouth. “I’m—”

“Don’t say sorry,” Micah interrupted tiredly, “and don’t say fine.”

Wincing, Matty looked too tired to argue. Maeva got him some water and stood over him while he sipped the entire glass.

Micah came to stand by Emiliano. “Well,” he remarked under his breath, “I guess even superheroes need heroes sometimes, right?”

It was meant as a compliment; that much was clear in Micah’s face and tone. But it had the effect of rooting Emiliano’s feet to the floor and causing his stomach to sink like a rock. Micah’s very sincerity was the problem: a stark reminder that Micah had _no idea_ what kind of person Emiliano really was.

Or…had been.

Would Micah ever look at Emiliano that way if he knew that Emiliano once facilitated the kidnapping of his daughter? As _bait_. And Emiliano hadn’t even lingered to ensure her safety. He hadn’t cared at all what happened to her so long as Matty got the message.

Mouth suddenly dry, Emiliano tried to swallow. He didn’t understand why Matty hadn’t told them. Or why Ella hadn’t, for that matter. But one thing was clear: he needed to tell Ella’s parents. He couldn’t let them go on thinking of him as a hero, and he couldn’t risk crossing lines that they would draw if only they knew the truth.

He set his shoulders back. “Can you take care of him for now?”

Maeva set her hand, apparently absently, in Matty's hair. Matty's eyes fluttered closed at the soft touch. “What, you’re leaving?” she asked.

“I need to take care of something.”

“Of—of course,” she said uncertainly. “We can google anything else he needs, I guess.”

“Good,” Emiliano said curtly. “Thank you.” He turned on his heel, heading for the door.

Ella intercepted him. “Are you gonna go find the bad guys?” she whispered. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“No, Ella. I’m going to talk to someone else.”

She wrinkled her nose, obviously confused. “Who?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Karen?” she guessed.

He didn’t trust Karen’s advice with this. “No, Ella. Stay here and watch after Matty.” She looked like she was about to keep arguing or asking questions, so he tried to sound more serious: “Can I trust you?”

Her expression cleared, replaced with determination. “Of course you can!”

“Thank you.” Emiliano backed out the door, noting that the Valliers, working together, finally managed to get Matty to a more comfortable position on the couch.

Interesting. Perhaps they weren’t as unused to the chaos as he’d thought.

~

It was still hard to believe sometimes that Matty had a mother. More specifically, it was hard to believe that Matty had a _relationship_ with her. For several reasons, not the least of which being that Stick, based on what Emiliano observed, tended to prioritize individuals who had no family structure left to speak of. Easier to sever ties if there were no ties to begin with.

But it was also hard to believe because Matty was, well…difficult. Complicated. Less so than Emiliano, but that didn’t change the fact that he would never quite shed the vestiges of Stick’s influence. Part of him would always be a warrior. And no one from outside that life could ever fully understand.

Yet, from what Emiliano understood, Maggie tried valiantly. She had endless patience, surprising wisdom, and a gentleness that was like a balm against Stick’s acidic words.

To be fair, Emiliano’s impression of her mostly came from Matty, who wasn’t exactly unbiased. However, Emiliano had yet to see any evidence to the contrary. And he needed that patience and wisdom right now. To be fair, she might be asleep, in which case he would have to get up the courage to come back later. But he suspected that she slept about as little as her son.

Upon reaching the church, he was disconcerted to realize she was not in the relatively familiar basement but in the church’s sanctuary. An odd word for the place: sanctuary. If only such a thing existed. And if it did, it would certainly not be _here_ , with its nonsensical traditions mixed with teachings form ancient texts. Not to mention the fact that the church’s walls would never stop a force like the Hand.

He hesitated only a moment before slipping inside. There were no other parishioners, thankfully; he knew that looked somewhat bedraggled compared to the average churchgoer.

Unlike her son, Maggie did not immediately notice him. She was at the front, kneeling by candlelight. A picturesque image. Emiliano didn’t want to disturb. But he felt, illogically, that perhaps getting close would give him a glimpse into whatever she was experiencing. He walked up the aisle, footsteps falling silently, conscious that each step was taking him further from the door where he could most easily escape. As he drew nearer, he could see her eyes aimed at the ceiling and her lips moving silently. He came to a stop at the rim of the candlelight, and waited.

After several minutes, she noticed him as if in her periphery. She jumped slightly in surprise and stood up. “Stone?”

He was about to correct her…but the purpose of this conversation was to discuss the evils he’d committed as Stone. Choosing a different name now felt suddenly not like the resolute about-face it had been previously but like a vain effort to distance himself from his own reality.

Something of his internal debate must have shown on his face because her eyes grew more serious. “Is everything all right?”

“I…” This was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. “I wanted to talk to you.”


	3. Somebody Stop Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Stop Me" by Christon Gray (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta2djZH0mzY).

Emiliano

Maggie smoothed down the front of her dress. “You’re here late.”

Emiliano inclined his head. “You’re up late.”

“What can I help you with?” she asked.

He shifted his weight. She gave Matty advice. She’d reached Dex, helped him. Surely nothing he could say would shock her?

No, he didn’t believe that. She might be good at masking her emotions, but he had no doubt that she would never look at him the same after what he was about to say. It would, however, be no great loss. It wasn’t as if he and Maggie had a relationship to speak of, and Emiliano didn’t even know what to do with a…a mother figure.

As he hesitated, her expression softened. “Stone?”

With that one word, his old name said with such gentleness, he realized acutely that hers was not in fact a presence in his life that he wanted to lose, even if he didn’t know what to do with it while he had it. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, making sure that the fabric covered the knives at his waist. But he couldn’t stand there in silence. “I wanted…I wanted to ask your advice.”

“Of course,” she said immediately. “Do you want to sit?”

“No,” he murmured. He _had_ to tell her. She might flinch at first, but she would recover, wouldn’t she? She would…not understand, no, but…overlook, perhaps. And what if she somehow didn’t flinch at all? It was an impossible thought, but one he instantly longed for.

“It’s Ella’s family,” he began at last, watching her carefully.

She looked patiently neutral, as if she wasn’t assuming anything. “What about them?”

“It was different when I was…protecting her.”

“Are you not protecting her anymore?”

He jerked his head. “It was different when I was _only_ protecting her.”

Now she looked confused. He couldn’t quite tell whether it was an act. “What are you doing now?”

Well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He didn’t _know_. But he’d gone to their house without hesitation when Matty was injured, and Micah Vallier had called him a hero. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and told himself to stop playing games. What was he doing, testing her?

“They don’t know what I’ve done,” he said, “so what am I supposed to do, wait for them to realize?” Matty might say something, or Ella, and then the trust the Valliers were inexplicably placing in him would evaporate.

If losing their trust was inevitable, he’d rather it happen sooner than later.

Maggie nodded slowly. “You want to get ahead of it?”

“No. I don’t want that.” He grimaced, trying to explain himself. “But I think I need to.”

She was quiet for a moment, a swirl of thoughts evident in her eyes. “That’s very generous of you,” she said finally.

“It isn’t. But it…it seems unfair to be around them while they’re ignorant of the truth of what I’ve done. Specifically what I’ve done to…to Ella.”

She folded her arms across her chest, almost as if she were cold. “It sounds like you know what you need to do, then.”

There was a question in her voice. _What do you want from me?_ Emiliano crossed his arms, mirroring her. “I’m not…I don’t…” He briefly closed his eyes. “I want you to tell me how to have that conversation.” She must have coached Matty through a thousand conversations that were at least distantly similar. Or perhaps he was simply projecting.

“I may not be the best person to ask,” she said darkly.

“You give Matty advice, and Dex. Why not me?” Were his crimes somehow worse?

Well, yes. But it still stung to realize she thought that.

Somehow, she must have read his reaction in his face even though he was trying to remain impassive. Probably his new overexposure to softness was to blame. He’d have to work on that, or…decide whether that was something that needed to be worked on. Later. Much later. He had more pressing concerns.

“No, it’s me,” she said quickly. “It’s…I’m not the best person to talk about…forthrightness. With past wrongs.”

He tilted his head.

She leaned against the pew, eyes dropping away. “Has Matthew told you about me?”

Emiliano didn’t understand. “You’re his mother.”

She gave a tiny nod. “But has he told you what I did?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not.” Wetting her lip, she glanced sideways at him. There was something cold and armored in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was quiet but sharp, each word falling like darts sticking in a target. “I didn’t raise him. I left him with his father.”

What?

Of all the things she might have said, that was not what he’d expected.

“I had postpartum depression,” she went on, “and was afraid that I would…that I would hurt him, somehow. I thought I was doing the best thing for both of us, as much as I was able to think. And maybe I could forgive myself for that if I’d just gotten the courage to go back. But I didn’t.”

Go back?

“I came to the church. I was trying to obey God, but I was also running. Don’t misunderstand me,” she added, a warning that Emiliano was not sure he deserved. “This _is_ my calling. But there…there must have been a way for me to have both?”

For all her certainty, it sounded like she was asking a question.

Sniffing once, she lifted her head. “And then, after his father died, Matthew came here. And I watched over him, cared for him. But I didn’t tell him who I was.”

Emiliano needed a second to process that, but she kept going.

“And then he left the orphanage, went to school, and I was so proud of him. I had no idea about Daredevil, of course, until…until he showed up after Midland Circle.” She paused. “Has he told you about that?”

He knew the broad strokes of the story. About the Hand, about Elektra. So he nodded.

“Imagine my surprise,” she muttered, as if to herself. Then she pressed her lips together. “And when he realized the truth, imagine his betrayal.”

Emiliano drew back. “You never told him?”

Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, she managed a forced smile. “No. And not for lack of chances. I’d give anything to have the courage to have told him myself, but…” Her voice died. She bit her lip. Then, setting her shoulders back, she drew herself up and faced him directly. “So, no, I don’t have any advice about how, practically, to say what you need to say. But I can tell you how important it will be.”

The _importance_ of the conversation had not been in doubt. Nor the necessity. Staring at her, Emiliano tried to reconcile the story she’d just told with the woman in front of him. It wasn’t working. Obviously, he’d known there had to be some kind of story about how a nun ended up as a mother, but this….

This was Matty’s _mother_ , the woman who’d healed him body and soul more times than Emiliano knew. And she’d gotten through to Dex when no one else had.

Maggie’s expression hardened under his stare. “Did you get what you came for?”

No; he’d gotten something else that he didn’t want, something he now wished he could give back. “Thank you,” he stammered, backing up hurriedly.

She didn’t stop him from leaving.

~

Matt

Matt didn’t sleep.

He’d texted Karen to let her know more or less what happened and that he wouldn’t be home until morning. He wasn’t a coward, but venturing back out there tonight would just be stupid. His skin still burned where the soap and milk had failed to get rid of all the pepper spray, his throat and nose were both clogged with mucus, his breathing was still arrhythmic, and he felt generally dizzy, like his senses had reacted to being suddenly blasted by recoiling, leaving him with a murkier sense of the world. He was stuck here, on the Vallier's couch in their living room.

But it wasn’t that bad. The Vallier’s house was soothing. They were all asleep upstairs; he could hear them breathing steadily, Ella at a faster pace than her parents. Without him having to think about it, his breathing fell into something more regular, patterned after theirs. Their refrigerator hummed from the next room over, and Ella's nightlight crackled in her room, and somewhere across the street a dog woke itself up from a dream with a startled bark.

Matt didn’t sleep, but he rested.

~

Karen; a few hours later

She had three of her own PI cases that really needed attention, but she couldn’t help wanting to work on Dex’s. Not from a legal standpoint, obviously. But from what she understood, his defense would be stronger the farther back into time they could go—the more they could show that he’d _always been like this_. That would both go a long way in making his diagnosis (diagnoses?) more credible to a jury and, incidentally, make it that much more impressive that he’d lasted so long without…snapping.

Plus, he’d tried to kill her enough times by now that it kinda felt like they had a connection.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t getting much done, even though she’d claimed the table as her own and was armed with snacks and coffee (after being pregnant, she was _never_ taking coffee for granted again). Gracie was even down for a daytime nap, giving Karen a small window of opportunity to work. Gracie wasn’t the problem.

Matt was. Apparently, he wanted her attention. “D’you know how attractive you sound while you’re being smart?”

Pausing her typing, she shot him an exasperated look over her shoulder. He was sprawled on the couch where he’d crashed after Maeva dropped him off that morning, and his eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. They were still red-streaked. As was his face. Shortly after he’d gotten home, he’d tripped over the coffee table trying to sneak ibuprofen, and the fact that he was actually breaking down and using pain meds coupled with the fact that his senses were so out of whack that he’d _tripped over the coffee table_ made her decision to put him on house arrest easy.

He was really enjoying his situation more than he should.

“How do you know I’m being smart?” she asked. “I could be online shopping.”

His lips curved slowly. “Your breathing changes whenever you think you’ve found a lead.”

“This isn’t a date, Matt,” she reminded him for the fourth time today already. “I’m working.”

“Yeah,” he said, aiming a suggestive grin at her. “I can tell.”

Snorting, she gestured flippantly at herself. She was wearing old sweatpants and one of his t-shirts, her hair was half falling out of its ponytail, and she hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since the third trimester. Not to mention that her body was…still far from what it used to be. “This is _not_ attractive.”

He sat up, only wincing slightly, looking genuinely upset now. Right. Sometimes she still forgot that he saw through flippancy. “I disagree,” he said carefully, enunciating clearly so she couldn’t miss a single syllable. “And I can prove it.”

“ _No_.” It wasn’t that big of a deal; she was fine. “I’m working. You realize how deep we need to dig to get Hell’s Kitchen to even _understand_ him, let alone forgive him?”

The little crease deepened between Matt’s eyebrows as he considered the question. “You think Hell’s Kitchen is capable of that?”

She quickly remembered that their definitions might be a little different on this point. For him, forgiveness was…bearing the pain of the offense instead of seeking vengeance? Something like that. For her, forgiveness was pretty much just… “A not guilty verdict,” she said. “I think they’re capable of giving him a not guilty verdict. But only _if_ they know where he’s coming from, and there’s just…a lot there, more than I even know at this point.”

“Need some help?” he asked.

“Not from you. You’re supposed to be resting.”

He rolled his eyes a bit too dramatically. “I was actually thinking about Emiliano.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Emiliano?”

“He’s spent more time alone with Dex than any of us,” Matt pointed out.

Not to mention that he was, apparently, something of a bookworm. Or he’d used to be, at least. “Maybe if he’s not too busy with Claire and…” Whatever else he was doing. He couldn’t be running around like a ninja during the day, could he? Not if he cared at all about staying under the radar. “I’ll text him.”

Matt smiled slowly. She wasn’t totally sure why.

Anyway, she had work to do. She turned resolutely back to her laptop and actually managed to regain some momentum when she suddenly felt warm breath on the side of her neck, followed by Matt’s lips on her skin. She jumped in her seat, shocked by his silent approach. “How did you _do_ that?”

“Do what?” he asked innocently, pulling her chair back and turning it slightly so he could get a better angle.

“Matt, not now,” she protested, even though she knew her body was sending him the opposite signals.

“We have a few minutes,” he whispered, “before she’s up.”

Exactly—minutes that Karen wanted to spend getting something done. But then she got a better look at Matt, with his playful, crooked smile and the focused heat in his eyes that stirred something deep inside her.

Really, was there a better use of their time than this?

~

Foggy; that evening

Matt looked good as new as Foggy watched him cross the street to the DA’s towering office. Karen said he’d gotten pepper sprayed in the face yesterday and Foggy wouldn’t have blamed him one bit for skipping the meeting today. It wasn’t that important anyway, just checking in with the prosecutor to make sure they were all on the same page. As much on the same page as you could be in a strictly adversarial process, at least. For Foggy and Matt, the _real_ goal was to make sure Kirsten McDuffie knew that she had a harder fight ahead of her now that Dex wasn’t being represented by whatever PD had been foisted upon him. So yeah, it was mostly gonna be posturing under the veneer of forced professionalism.

So, like, any other day at court. No big deal.

But Matt was resolute and Foggy could tell even from a distance that he was already a hair away from attack mode as he ignore the double-takes of passersby trying to figure out if the blind guy was actually Matt Murdock—Daredevil.

“Buddy,” Foggy said when Matt caught up to him. “You okay?”

Matt lifted his chin and wrinkled his nose. “Never better. I’m guessing you had a rough night, though.”

“Why?”

“You smell like pancakes, and I know that’s your comfort food.”

Foggy discreetly sniffed the collar of his shirt. “Brady’s just giving us some trouble with, y’know…sleeping. And eating. And remembering that our couch isn’t a toilet.”

Matt winced and Foggy instantly regretted telling him that part about the couch—now Matt was never gonna come over again. “I still can’t believe you named your dog Brady.”

“It’s a classic case, Matt, and basically our bread and butter as defense attorneys, which _I know you know_. Besides, it’s a strong name for a dog.”

“A _s_ trong name?” Matt laughed. “Brady? Don’t tell me you still want to name your future cat Miranda.”

“Of course we do,” Foggy said loftily. Matt had no room to make fun—he’d named _his_ dog after a mass murderer.

Matt was still grinning as he jerked his head towards the DA’s office and its shiny revolving doors. “Let’s go, professor.”

“Not one of your better burns,” Foggy informed him petulantly, following him into the building. Matt just snorted, and the snort echoed off all the steel walls as they passed through metal detectors. To be fair, Landman and Zack was about ten times fancier than the DA’s office. But this place was still ten times fancier than Nelson and Murdock. “Oh, to be the lowest rung on the totem pole,” Foggy mourned under his breath.

“Totem poles don’t have rungs,” Matt pointed out. His voice had lost its playfulness, though; he cocked his head and headed towards the elevators. “McDuffie’s waiting for us.” He brushed his hand over the control panel until he found the button.

Foggy watched. It was the little things like this, where Matt’s senses couldn’t actually pinpoint the beveled edge of the elevator button, that were weirdly reassuring. Just small reminders that his best friend really _was_ blind, that it wasn’t _all_ an act.

Anyway.

They loaded into the elevator and soared to the top. Okay, so the ride was a bit clunky and there was definitely a moment there where Foggy was worried about the structural integrity of the whole contraption. But still, it was an _elevator_.

Whatever; Foggy refused to be intimidated, even when they stepped out of the elevator into a long hallway and Foggy followed Matt's head tilt, turning to see Kirsten McDuffie bearing down on them.

McDuffie was beautiful in a carefully understated, professional, could-probably-charge-you-with-three-felonies-if-you-looked-at-her-wrong sort of way. Thanks to his exposure to Marci, Foggy couldn’t help wondering if that was McDuffie’s natural style or the result of being squeezed through the machine of such a male-dominated career. Either way, she sure seemed to own it—marching forward with her sleek chestnut ponytail swinging and coming to a stop right in front of them.

 _She_ clearly wasn’t intimidated.

“Evening,” Matt said, sticking out his hand and flashing a grin (just the right mix of charming and roguish, the hooligan) when her hand found his.

Foggy rolled his eyes hard enough that he hoped Matt could hear it. He’d seen this stunt before: not flirting, Matt insisted, but probing. Seeing if he could throw opposing counsel off balance.

Now, Foggy couldn’t hear McDuffie’s heartbeat, but there wasn’t a hint of a blush on her slightly olive-toned skin and he was willing to bet that she wasn’t affected at all when she let out a dry chuckle. Matt’s mildly chagrinned head bob said _well played_ , confirming Foggy’s suspicions. “Good to see you again, Mr. Murdock,” she said.

Matt swapped the grin for a smirk. “I wish I could say the same.”

She didn’t apologize at all for the gaff and Foggy thought it might possibly have been intentional. Instead, she turned towards Foggy, shook his head, greeted him, and opened the door to her office. “Shall we?”

Once everyone was settled—McDuffie on her side of the desk, Matt and Foggy side-by-side opposite her—McDuffie clicked a pen. “So. Congratulations on securing the Poindexter case. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

“Oh, I’m plenty faint of heart,” Foggy said blithely, “but Matt more than makes up for it.”

She glanced askance at him. “I bet he does. Anyway, I’m glad it’s you two. The PD would’ve just _rolled over_. I think he only took the case for the press.”

Matt stiffened slightly.

“You don’t want us to roll over?” Foggy asked, squinting at her.

She laid the pen flat on the notepad, lining it up with the lines on the pad with perfectly unnecessary precision. “Let’s be clear. Your client doesn’t have much of a case. Still, I’d like to show the people of this city that their trust in me is well-placed.”

And just like that, Matt slipped fully into attack mode. His chin came up in a quick, tight motion. “With what I know of you, I’m disappointed to hear that you consider this nothing more than a campaign stunt. But I’m sure my client will find your perspective relevant when we’re negotiating a deal. After all, we all know how things can go sideways at trial, and especially one with this kind of spotlight.”

Everything in Foggy wanted to jump in and smooth things over. But Matt was the one listening to McDuffie’s blood pressure; better to follow his lead.

McDuffie arched a cool eyebrow. “Securing the citizens’ trust in this office is paramount, as I’m sure you’d agree, Mr. Murdock. Weren’t you the one who let the NYPD get the glory for taking down Frank Castle?”

Foggy tried not to look too obviously like he had no idea what they were talking about.

“And justice in a specific instance to you is irrelevant compared to that broader goal?” Matt snapped.

“What do you think justice in this specific instance looks like?” she snapped back.

“Dex needs help,” Matt said flatly. “There are more goals of the criminal justice system than only punishment.”

Her lips parted. “Rehabilitation?”

“If possible.”

“ _Is_ it possible, with someone like him?”

Matt smiled thinly. “I’m sure you’ll find out during discovery. That’s what it’s for.”

McDuffie’s eyes narrowed, no doubt concluding that the only reason Matt wasn’t decisively explaining why Dex could in fact be rehabilitated was because Matt knew he couldn’t be. “Your little experiment could cost lives, Mr. Murdock.”

Okay, enough was enough. “No one’s experimenting here,” Foggy cut in.

McDuffie threw him a scornful look. “So you’ve got evidence to back up your contention that your client _isn’t_ a menace to Hell’s Kitchen?”

Uh…that was definitely not what Foggy was contending, no.

“We’ve got evidence that our client isn’t an inevitable threat,” Matt countered, even though Foggy was unaware that such evidence actually existed yet. “And throwing him in jail will just get him killed, or he’ll be sprung for the, what, fourth time now?”

McDuffie scoffed. “So we should skip the part where someone springs him and just let him wreak havoc on his own? Give me a break.”

“Ms. McDuffie.” Folding his hands on the desk, Matt leaned forward. He now had that impossibly earnest look on his face, the one that managed to melt the steeliest hearts even through his sunglasses. “You need to put on a strong case as DA; I understand that. But Ben Poindexter is a very broken individual in need of a lot of help. If you’re the woman I understand you to be—”

Her eyes flashed. “The next time a man waltzes in here and says he thinks he _understands_ me—”

Matt didn’t let up. “If you’re the woman I understand you to be, you’ll pursue every avenue in the interest of justice instead of just locking someone up the first chance you get!”

McDuffie’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

“Cool it,” Foggy whispered under his breath to his partner.

McDuffie glared at Matt. Matt, for all intents and purposes, glared back. Foggy resisted the urge to glance around for a fire extinguisher in case the heat of their stares caused something to ignite.

Then suddenly, without any warning that Foggy could recognize, McDuffie rolled her eyes. “All right, _fine_. You think this guy can be rehabilitated? I actually wanna believe you.”

Matt blinked behind his glasses. From the look of it, she was telling the truth.

Foggy gaped at her. “You do?”

“The guy’s a mass murderer and there’s no way he’s getting off easy,” she said, “but _if_ he’s responsive to help, I’m open to…helping him. _If_.”

Matt nodded, still looking slightly stunned. “He is.”

“Convince me, Mr. Murdock.” Pushing her chair back, she stood up. “And if you can convince me, I’ll help you convince Hell’s Kitchen.”

~

Matt

He’d heard McDuffie was a good person, but he somehow hadn’t actually expected that goodness to linger once she took the position of interim DA. In Matt’s experience, the DA’s office was about as effective as Landman and Zack at turning people into soulless, selfish zombies.

But she seemed to be telling the truth.

They went over a few other pieces of business, preliminary stuff that Matt couldn’t care less about, not with the way his mind was racing ahead. Witnesses, exhibits, everything they’d need to prove that Dex could be helped. The fact that Dex _could_ be helped, Matt took as a given. He still tried to pay attention to Foggy and McDuffie regardless, but then he heard some news channel somewhere in the building reporting on the time and he suddenly he’d lost track of it.

He cleared his throat. “Hey, uh…if that’s everything we have to cover…”

“You got somewhere to be?” McDuffie asked.

“Mentorship program,” Matt said smoothly. Not exactly a lie. “High school student.”

It did the trick; she softened at that, people always did. “That’s very considerate of you.”

It was Foggy’s turn to snort loudly. He tried to turn it into a cough.

Matt studiously ignored him. “Thank you for your time, Ms. McDuffie.”

“Yeah, we’ll wrap up,” Foggy said. “I’ll probably do better without your charming face distracting our lovely new DA.”

“Interim DA,” McDuffie said. “And _don’t_ call me lovely.”

“Our incredibly intelligent and fearsome new interim DA,” Foggy corrected himself without missing a beat.

“Mmm,” she said, sounding like she putting a lot of effort into not sounding amused.

Biting back a grin, Matt grabbed his briefcase. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Wait,” she said suddenly, suspiciously, “what _kind_ of mentorship—”

Not eager to answer that question, Matt just flashed her his signature charming smile (he hoped) and headed for the door—not having to pretend to grope for the knob, leaving Foggy to try to field McDuffie’s questions about what mentoring Daredevil might be providing.

Outside, he hailed a cab to the gym. It was more expensive, sure, but the fact that the people of Hell’s Kitchen knew he was Daredevil didn’t really feel like a justification to run around rooftops in a dress suit. For one thing, cleaning it was a chore. For another, _flaunting_ his identity as Daredevil didn’t seem like a good idea. Daredevil still had enemies and he didn’t need to go out of his way to annoy them, not when it might fall back on the people he loved. Still, taking a cab meant jostling through pedestrians to get to the edge of the street, and he was quickly realizing that he’d been naïve to think before that his fellow citizens were rude for bumping into an obviously blind man as often as they did.

Because when Matt just had his sunglasses and not his cane, he got slammed into a _lot_.

New Yorkers.

But he made it safely into a cab without getting too bruised. Not that it would matter, relatively speaking, since training with Peter always left him pretty battered. The kid was getting both stronger and more skilled and Matt couldn’t be prouder.

Once at Fogwell’s, he left the cab and paused. He could hear Peter’s heartbeat not in the gym but…on the roof around back? The kid’s heartrate was slow and steady; wouldn’t be noticeable at all if Matt wasn’t extra alert to it. (He could never _assume_ Peter hadn’t run into trouble somewhere.)

Frowning, Matt took a few steps towards the side of Fogwell’s before stopping. He’d been hounding Peter on working on stealth—especially on the importance of shutting up for at least five second intervals. Maybe that was what this was? So, feigning ignorance, Matt headed into Fogwell’s as if nothing was unusual.

They had Fogwell’s all to themselves, which was important given the logistical complications of protecting Peter’s identity. They didn’t want to advertise that Spiderman hung out here—well, Matt didn’t; the less criminals knew about Spiderman’s habits, the better—but Peter couldn’t very well be seen sparring with Matt Murdock. Not anymore. So they improvised with a various masks, although so far Peter had only tried using see-through fabrics over his eyes. Still, it was always nice when Fogwell’s was empty and Matt could use Peter’s name.

Ducking into the bathroom, Matt quickly changed into sweats and a t-shirt and left his dress shoes with his briefcase. He kept one ear on Peter, noting the kid’s creeping progression across the roof. Still unsure what he was playing at, Matt wrapped up his wrists and settled in front of a punching bag. Might as well warm up until Peter decided to—

A sudden breeze was all the warning Matt got before Peter swung into the gym, webs flying. Matt ducked, feeling webbing tug at his hair, and rolled forward. Peter flipped backwards and up onto the ceiling, out of Matt’s reach.

But not out of reach of Matt’s water bottle, which he grabbed, uncapped, and tossed upwards, soaking the teenager’s t-shirt and joggers.

“Aw, man!” Peter unstuck himself from the ceiling and hit the floor in a soggy heap. He pulled unhappily at some tangled strings of webbing. “You know I hate it when it gets wet.”

Matt just raised his eyebrows and pointed at his hair. “And how am I supposed to get this out?”

“When it dissolves,” Peter said guiltily. “Sorry.”

Matt waved it off. He couldn’t really be annoyed; the fact that Peter had managed to tag him at all was a sign that the kid’s speed was improving.

“When’d you realize I was there?” Peter asked, leaning forward on his toes now.

Matt cocked his head. “After I changed out of my work clothes.”

Peter’s heart skipped with a spike of dopamine. “Your heartbeat changed, I heard it!”

Matt grinned, remembering well the thrill of fine-tuning his lie detection. “You caught me.”

“Aw, damnit,” he muttered a second later as he realized he hadn’t been as stealthy as he’d thought. “When’d you notice me?”

“As soon as I left the cab,” Matt admitted. “And watch your language.” Peter was rolling his eyes at him, Matt was sure of it. Still, Matt couldn’t exactly verify. “So, wanna work more on stealth? Going against me, your best bet is to use other sound to muffle your own. Or to take out my senses, obviously.”

“I’m not doing that,” Peter said, as indignant as if Matt had suggested knocking his own senses offline.

“You should know how to incapacitate me,” Matt argued.

“Why?”

It took Matt a second to realize the question was genuine. “Because…” He trailed off.

He’d never questioned why he’d had to think about how to incapacitate Stick.

And Matt was not Stick.

He shook his head firmly. “Never mind. Let’s talk about what other sounds you can use.”

~

Makhaira

She sat by the water tower, high above Hell’s Kitchen, where she could watch over the city as twilight set in. Not that her target was out there on the streets. Nope, he was locked up tight and she hadn’t figured out how to get to him yet.

Not to brag, but killing Fisk hadn’t been that difficult. Breaking into his high-security prison _would_ have been difficult, but she hadn’t needed to do that. All she needed was to add devil’s hell to his food or water, and neither of those were really the guards’ priority, really. Not when the person they were feeding and watering was _Fisk_.

She blinked, shaking her pale hair out of her eyes as the wind changed direction. Look, there was the spider-kid swinging by underneath. He hadn’t noticed her yet, so some vigilante he was. Okay, that wasn’t fair. Rumor had it he was just a kid. Besides, she wasn’t about to take advantage of his obliviousness. He was just doing his thing, not hurting anyone who didn’t deserve to be hurt. So he had nothing to fear from her.

Slowly, she unspooled her pouch of poisons, each vial so tightly packed that they didn’t clink even when she ran around on roofs. That was the only way to get anywhere in New York these days, you know. She had plenty of options, but her favorite was devil’s hell, a clear and slightly viscous substance. Kind of pretty, if you squinted. And it looked harmless. But the human body was just so, so frail.

Anyway, you’d think it would be just as easy to get to Ben Poindexter as it was to get to Fisk. From what she could tell, most of the guards would kiss her for taking him out for them. Really, they’d probably leave the door open for her—if it weren’t for public perception. Apparently it didn’t look _spectacular_ for two high-profile convicts to fall prey to extrajudicial execution back-to-back. So they’d upped security.

No problem. She could get more creative.

A lot more creative. Since apparently Dex’s PD had been replaced by a shiny new defense attorney. Two shiny new defense attorneys, technically, but Makhaira wasn’t overly worried that Franklin “Foggy” Nelson could get between her and her target.

Matt Murdock, though. Daredevil. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Who apparently caught criminals and gave them to the police only to turn around and fight to get them out of jail. It must make sense to him according to whatever weird moral code guided him, but all she could think was that it was a good thing her job didn’t require her to unpack the crazy workings of his mind.

No, she only had to care about consequences. And Murdock’s weren’t pretty, but they weren’t at Poindexter’s level. Not nearly. He wasn’t her target, but he might have a problem with her going after his client. (She wouldn’t complain; messing with those senses of his sounded like fun. Did he realize they were a vulnerability as much as a strength? He had to. He might do stupid things, but he wasn’t actually stupid. Probably.)

She started resorting her vials and decided to give her knife a fresh coat. She wasn’t expecting to need it any time soon, but it never hurt to be prepared. Besides, it filled time.

And filling time was gonna be important while she waited for an opening with Poindexter. Unless his situation took care of itself. Maybe he’d get the death penalty. Or maybe one of the inmates would take him out. Or even one of the _guards_.

In fact, she was very sure that the situation _would_ take care of itself. After what he did to so many people, Hell’s Kitchen wanted his blood. Not even Daredevil could stop that.

(Although it would be fun if he tried.)

The thing was, even if it was true that Dex had already signed his own death warrant, that didn’t mean she could wait around for it to kick in. Her whole life, good people just stood by and let evil happen. Told themselves they weren’t part of it; made themselves feel better. But it was a lie. If you didn’t stop it, you were allowing it.

Patience was a virtue. But only to a point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaddup whaddup, it's a new character! I really hope you like her - or like disliking her?


	4. Take Me as I Am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Take Me As I Am" by FM Static (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl6T8mByII8).
> 
> I'm sorry it's been forever since I've posted! I've gotten carried away with a shorter, 100% whump fic that has mayyyybe three character arcs, max, and it's been so much easier, and this story is just so much more complicated. But I love it and I hope updates will be a bit quicker! (I had to submit a huge assignment for my law school's journal, and then we have a mock trial competition next week, so it's been...so, so crazy.) Anyway, enjoy!

Emiliano

He’d gone straight from Clinton Church to his apartment, arriving at some uncivilized hour before dawn when he’d immediately seen the notice taped on the door, informing him that his water had been shut off. Problems with the pipes, the landlord explained in shaky, spidery handwriting. Emiliano didn’t believe it for a second. The landlord simply wanted him out.

Which, to be fair, was understandable.

He’d ignored the note to stand by the window watching the city slowly awaken, and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Matty, who’d never had a mother, to suddenly have one—but to realize that she’d been there all along and yet had chosen to stay away.

(At least Emiliano knew that his own mother hadn’t had a choice.)

Technically, the nun had helped. She’d reinforced Emiliano’s belief that he needed to tell Ella’s parents about…about what he’d done to Ella, at least, if not about the rest. He’d gotten what he’d wanted. So why did he feel so disappointed?

And Matty’s mother wasn’t _his_ mother. So why did her betrayal of Matty feel so…personal?

Perhaps he’d already waited too long to tell the Valliers the truth about his past. Perhaps betrayal was inevitable at this point.

He should really ask Claire her opinion, since she wanted to meet that evening, but the last thing he wanted was to show her one other area of his life that he had no idea how to handle, like dropping a dead thing in her lap.

“You okay?” she asked anyway, as soon as she let into her apartment: warm and brightly lit and smelling of some food Emiliano had never tasted before.

“Of course.” It wasn’t a lie. Physically, he was fine. And she hadn’t specified.

She hummed skeptically, setting a large dish on the table and busying herself with scooping large helpings of whatever-it-was onto two plates. It looked like cannoli but did not smell like a pastry. “You sure?”

How much did _she_ know about what he’d done? What if, in trying to ask for advice about the Valliers, he exposed parts of himself that she didn’t even know existed?

“Emiliano?” she asked, stilling her movements.

He shook his head. “I’m going to need a new apartment. That’s all.”

She smiled. “New year, new apartment, new you?”

Oh, if only.

~

It was a coward’s decision to keep his secrets from the Valliers. What right did he have to even pretend to be a different man if he couldn’t even apologize for his crimes? He didn’t need a nun to tell him what to do and he certainly didn’t need Claire to direct him. Surely he could manage to do one decent thing by himself. So he texted Matty as soon as he got home from Claire’s, asking for phone numbers, and tried to ignore the surprise in Micah’s voice when he answered Emiliano’s call.

He was relieved when Micah and Maeva suggested that they meet outside of their home. Neutral territory, as it were. He was also approving: it was prudent of them to limit his familiarity with their home, as much as possible. (And yet a small part of him was disappointed that they felt it necessary.)

They met at a park the next day. At least, they met at what passed for a park in Hell’s Kitchen. There were trees, although they were spaced out enough that they felt more like afterthoughts, and green grass, and the air smelled clearer. Birds chirped. He hadn’t spared a thought for birds in…years.

“What did you want to talk to us about?” Micah asked, hands in the pockets of his jacket. He stood slightly in front of Maeva. Defensive positioning, though it was unclear whether that was due to Emiliano’s presence or due to habit. New York was not a safe place, and Micah Vallier was slow to trust. It wasn’t necessarily personal.

“What has Matt told you about me?” Emiliano asked in return.

“Not much,” Maeva said. “Just that you’ve helped Ella before, and that you and Matt got similar training.”

That last idea sounded heavier, loaded down with meaning. Emiliano suddenly remembered Matty’s vehement insistence that Stick’s training had…gone too far. Did he still think that? Had he told the _Valliers_ that? When they looked at Emiliano, did they see a victim?

Emiliano kept his face impassive. “And that’s it? He hasn’t told you how I’ve _used_ that training?”

Micah looked wary. “Should he have?”

Yes. Yes, he should have. Emiliano took a deep breath. “If he hasn’t, I need to.”

Maeva raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

Emiliano elected not to answer that just yet. “Matty was trained for about one year, after which point he was left to his own devices. For whatever reason—the influence of people in his life or perhaps his own innate goodness—he chose not to use the training until necessary, at which point he unleashed it on the sundry villains of Hell’s Kitchen. I, however, was trained for ten years, after which point I was sent on various missions to stop an ancient and evil organization seeking world dominion.”

For a second, he allowed himself to enjoy the startled looks on their faces.

“When you say _ancient and evil organization_ …” Micah began.

“They’ve been responsible for the majority of catastrophes throughout history,” Emiliano explained concisely. “They’ve attacked New York twice since I’ve been alive, although I’ve spent most of my time tracking them through other parts of the world.”

Maeva’s eyes were round. “Wow. Matt said you were skilled, but…”

Micah cleared his throat. “Clearly, we underestimated you. We can’t thank you enough for using all your training to protect Ella.”

Ah, that was painful. Emiliano averted his gaze. “In fighting that organization, I was told to use whatever methods necessary, and I did. I was told not to ask questions, and I didn’t. I didn’t enjoy the harm I inflicted for its own sake, but I found great satisfaction in knowing—in—in _believing_ that I was achieving a higher purpose. However, to this day, I do not know what if any of the things I did were ever justified.”

The subsequent silence was uncomfortable. Emiliano couldn’t read it.

He broke it. “And you need to know that when I first came to Hell’s Kitchen, I thought Matty needed my help. I thought he needed to be stronger and…and safer. I thought the relationships in his life were making him vulnerable. And so…” He dropped his gaze to the grass beneath his shoes. “And so, when I realized how devoted he was to Ella and I realized how thoroughly she would ruin his life if…if anything happened to her, I…I tried to cut the ties between them.” He swallowed as Micah’s heart started beating faster. “I arranged for her to be kidnapped.”

Micah took a step forward. Brave of him, considering. “What did you just say?”

Maeva was frozen.

“I didn’t intend her to come to harm,” Emiliano said softly, “but I didn’t take any precautions, either. And then, after Matty took Kyle Conway’s life, I…I told her he did it for her. I wanted her to hate him. She didn’t, but…” He trailed off.

“Kidnapped,” Micah growled.

 _I wouldn’t do that again, I’d never do that, I’d kill anyone who tried._ The words were on his lips, but he held them back. The purpose of this conversation was not to vindicate himself.

Maeva took a step closer, parallel to Micah now. “Was she hurt?”

Emiliano shook his head. “Matty found her. But she was frightened.”

Micah swore under his breath. Possibly Emiliano hadn’t been meant to hear it.

“I’m not telling you this with the expectation of forgiveness. I only—”

Micah’s eyes bored into Emiliano. “Then why _are_ you telling us?”

Emiliano wanted to retreat from his hostility. Instead, he gave himself two seconds to remind himself why that would be counterproductive. “I want to be able to protect her. There’s no reason to assume that the attack on your home will be the last. But…” He wet his lips. “You are her guardians and, unlike many, have actual concern for her welfare. If you allow me to remain in her life, it must not be because I’ve hidden this from you.”

Maeva put her hand on Micah’s arm. “Um. Thank you for telling us. We need to talk about it together, I think. Or is there…is there anything else we should know about?”

Emiliano clenched his jaw. “Do you want specifics?”

“No,” Maeva said quickly. “Not yet, anyway. Micah?”

Micah jerked his head. “Yeah, we definitely need to—talk about this.”

“Of course,” Emiliano said very quietly. They walked away, leaving him among the grass and few trees, listening to birds conversing and trying not to wish he’d made a different choice.

~

Matt

He was cross-legged on the living room floor in a pool of sun. More often than not, he’d sat there to meditate, which usually involved thinking through his mistakes and figuring out where exactly he’d gone wrong.

Today was different. He wasn’t meditating and he wasn’t thinking about the past at all.

Gracie was in his lap where he held her upright, and she kept touching the string of his hoodie, which apparently fascinated her. Her infant swing was set up in front of him, but he wasn’t really a fan of the distance between them and it didn’t seem like she was either. He much preferred the feel of her, and judging by the way she reacted, she much preferred to be held.

She also preferred his voice. So whenever he held her, he talked. About his day, about Karen, about Thurgood Marshall. He hoped it made up for the fact that he couldn’t ever be sure he was smiling exactly at her. And she seemed to appreciate it, because she talked back in her own unique language.

“I’ve done nothing but talk to psychologists all day,” he was telling her. “We’re trying to find the right one for Dex, but it’s hard, ’cause whoever we find has to both connect to Dex and be able to give convincing testimony. And, frankly, talking to that many psychologists is just really weird. I _know_ they’re trying to analyze me, but I have no idea what they think they’re figuring out.” He much preferred Dr. Richland, who was more straightforward with her observations about him. “Anyway, how’s your day been?”

Gracie didn’t seem to understand the question, because she opted for reaching up to his face instead of talking. He couldn’t confirm yet, but it seemed like she touched his face more than anyone else’s, and he wondered if that was because she could somehow tell he couldn’t see her? Or maybe it was just because he probably touched her face more often than anyone else did, and so she understood that touching was more significant to him. Or maybe he was overthinking all of this.

There was just…there was so much to discover in this tiny package.

Frank suddenly hopped off the couch to stand alertly by his side, and Matt cocked his head at the sound of approaching footsteps. Not from the stairs; from the nearby roofs. And Frank had noticed first! With a burst of pride, Matt scratched the dog’s ears. Adjusting his grip on Gracie, he stood up and managed to get the door to the roof open before Emiliano could knock.

“Didn’t realize we were training today,” Matt greeted him, holding the door open for him.

Emiliano brushed past him to head down the stairs; a weird energy vibrated off him, some combination of anxious tension and too much adrenaline. He smelled like…nature? And the Valliers. “I can’t come over for any other reason, of course,” he said coolly.

Matt scratched awkwardly behind his ear with his free hand. “I didn’t—that’s not what I meant.”

Emiliano didn’t have anything to say to that. He stood at the foot of the stairs, patting Frank’s head.

Matt moved the conversation along. “I was just talking with Gracie,” he said casually, joining him on the first floor and listening for his double-take.

But Emiliano asked, “About what?” without missing a beat.

Interesting. “Psychologists,” Matt answered.

“Did she have any insights?”

“Well, not yet.”

Emiliano leaned in close towards the baby. “ _Tuo padre é un cretino, Gianetta._ ”

Matt understood about half of that from Spanish. “I get that you just called me an idiot, but what did you call Gracie?”

“Gianetta,” he said innocently.

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Traditionally, people give nicknames that are _shorter_ than the actual name.”

Emiliano shrugged. “ _Ma dove sarebbe il divertimento?_ ”

Matt really didn’t know what that meant, but he found himself grinning anyway at Emiliano’s casual use of his native language. “Hey, were you with the Valliers?”

To his surprise, Emiliano stiffened slightly. “I’m surprised you can smell anything after what the pepper spray did to you.”

Matt groaned loudly at the memory. “Didn’t it bother you?”

“I have training, not enhanced senses.”

Matt made a face at the injustice of the world. “Where’d you go, afterwards? You disappeared.”

“Nowhere.”

His heartrate sounded nervous. “How’s things with Claire?” Matt asked, not sure if he was giving Emiliano an out by changing the subject or inadvertently probing deeper into what was clearly a sore subject.

“We were together yesterday.” He shifted his weight. “At her place, again. She doesn’t trust me to take her out until I have an actual job, I think. In fact…I doubt my landlord will suffer my presence much longer.”

Matt was completely unsurprised. “What’re you gonna do about that?’

Emiliano forced a shrug. “Find somewhere else to stay. Someplace where the landlord doesn’t shut off my water in a war of attrition. Regardless, I can’t help wondering if Claire is also testing me somehow, because she keeps making the strangest meals. Last time it was some kind of cannoli called _tamales_ and I didn’t like them but I told her I did—” He stopped abruptly, probably because he’d noticed Matt’s lips twitching. He lapsed into silence like an offended cat.

“They’re not cannoli, they’re tamales,” Matt corrected. “And you can’t lie about tamales, Em. Tamales are sacred.”

Emiliano grunted indignantly. “Em?”

“I told you, nicknames are supposed to be shorter.”

There was a moment of silence. Then: “I need you to know that I’m rolling my eyes at you.”

And it sounded so much like what Foggy would say that Matt couldn’t help smiling.

“How much have you told her?” Emiliano asked suddenly. “Claire.”

Matt cocked his head. “About?”

He hesitated. “About me.”

“Not much,” Matt admitted, wondering where he was going with this. No, wondering what he was _worried_ about. Because Emiliano was clearly worried. “Just that we both trained with Stick, really.”

Which was no small thing.

None of the tension left Emiliano’s body. “I take it, then, that you haven’t told her about how I’ve used Stick’s training.”

Oh.

“After all,” he went on stiffly, “I wasn’t exactly rescuing children from human traffickers.”

Right. Even Matt didn’t know the details of Emiliano’s activities with the Chaste. All he really knew was that Stick had never been averse to killing anyone, and that Stone had shown equal unrestraint. To be fair, Matt had never known Emiliano to kill anyone who wasn’t a threat, and he’d definitely never known him to kill a child. But Emiliano had also callously put Ella in harm’s way by orchestrating her kidnapping, and he’d gone out of his way to use psychological torment against her by twisting the story of how Matt killed Kyle Conway.

(Strange that those things had happened less than two years ago. Strange how far they’d come.)

The point was, Matt couldn’t rule out that Emiliano’s crueler side hadn’t sometimes influenced his kills.

Matt realized belatedly that Emiliano was stiffening, probably interpreting Matt’s silence in the worst possible way. “You’re not like that anymore,” he said quickly. “Claire’s brilliant. And compassionate. She’ll see that.”

“What if she never asks?” Emiliano’s voice was gruff, like he was trying not to sound hopeful. “Perhaps it’s…a sign of respect, and trust, if she doesn’t. If she wants to only look ahead, who am I to argue?”

Matt pursed his lips, letting Emiliano reach his own conclusion about that.

The following silence was long, and still tense. Frank chose that moment to lick Emiliano’s fingers.

“Ugh,” Emiliano said.

Matt laughed. “You can handle being stabbed, but not being licked?”

“I can _handle_ it fine,” Emiliano retorted, nudging Frank away with his leg. He walked across the room to help himself to beer from Matt’s fridge. Two, actually, one of which he opened and handed to Matt.

“Should I thank you for giving me my own drink?” Matt asked wryly.

“So manners would dictate,” Emiliano responded, sitting cross-legged on the middle of the floor. Not to meditate, though, and certainly not to spar. Just to drink.

Before Matt could think twice, he was sitting down across from him with Gracie. It wasn’t training. It wasn’t even close.

It might be better.

~

Maeva

Maeva was making dinner, and Micah followed behind her, aggressively cleaning everything she was using to cook. Ella was playing by herself in the living room, narrating a story aloud as she made her dolls and stuffed animals interact. More importantly, she was distracted and not listening to Micah and Maeva’s conversation.

“ _Kidnapped_ ,” Micah was saying, again and again, like he was afraid he’d forget if he didn’t keep reminding himself.

When Maeva thought about it, really _thought_ about it, it sent a spike of anger through her and made her want to run out and hold Ella. But it was in the past.

Micah scrubbed fiercely at a spoon she’d used to mix the sauce for their chicken. “Matt should’ve told us.”

Maeva shrugged. “I see why he didn’t. His priority was keeping Ella safe, and he would’ve known we wouldn’t have wanted Emiliano around if we knew.”

“That’s _our_ decision, not his.”

That was true, but what was the point of being so upset by it now? “We’ll talk to Matt, tell him not to keep anything like that from us again. But you can’t deny that Emiliano did a brave thing by telling us.”

“ _Brave_ ,” Micah spluttered, throwing the spoon in the silverware drawer and slamming it closed.

Shrugging, Maeva tasted the sauce. It needed more garlic.

“Are we supposed to forgive him just because he was _brave?_ ” Micah reached for the measuring cup to clean it.

Maeva brushed his hand out of the way. “Hey, I’m still using that. And who said anything about forgive? I’m just saying maybe he doesn’t need to be punished for something that happened over a year ago.”

“Doesn’t he,” Micah muttered, glaring at the bright red rooster decoration perched behind the sink and throwing a dishtowel over his shoulder.

Maeva put a dirty plate in his hands for him to clean instead. “I think we need to remember what’s important here.”

“ _Important?_ He kidnapped our _daughter!_ ” He dropped the plate in the sink with a loud _crack_. “Damnit, Maeva, I have a right to be angry about this!”

“Daddy?”

They both whirled around to see Ella’s bushy hair and one round, scared eye peeking around the corner from the living room.

Oh, no.

Maeva touched Micah’s shoulder and all the tension there. He flexed his jaw, threw the towel in the sink, and walked out the back door, which slammed shut behind him. He hadn’t moved at all in Ella’s direction, but she still shrank away.

Carefully, Maeva knelt down on the kitchen floor. “Ella?”

“Daddy’s really angry,” she whispered.

Maeva nodded. “Not at you, though.”

“Then why?”

“Come here?” Maeva asked gently. To her relief, Ella came closer, sitting with her back to the pantry door and her knees pulled up to her chest. “We, um, we had kind of a hard conversation earlier.”

Her voice was small. “Did you fight?”

“No, no,” Maeva reassured her. “No, we’re fine, it wasn’t between us and he’s not angry at me either. But we, um, we talked to your friend.” _Friend_ —he’d _kidnapped_ her. “Emiliano. He wanted to, um, tell us some stuff.”

“Am I in trouble?” Ella blurted out.

Maeva tried not to look worried, but why would Emiliano talking to them get Ella in trouble? “No, honey. Emiliano just told us about…about some of the things he’s done. Especially some of the things he’s done to you.”

“Oh!” A smile appeared briefly before vanishing. “Well, he’s not like that anymore.”

Maeva braced herself. “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ella said emphatically.

On the one hand, out of the mouths of babes. On the other, Ella was far too quick to see the best in people. “The point is, Dad and I are okay. He’s just still upset about what happened to you.”

Ella glanced towards the back door. “He _shouldn’t_ be.”

“Why not, do you think?”

“Because I’m okay! And because…because it was _forever_ ago.”

Maeva nodded. “I know. But it was still a…a really bad thing that he did to you, honey. You could’ve been really hurt. It’s normal for Dad to be angry about that.”

Ella didn’t look convinced. No surprise there.

Maeva scooted a bit closer. “He’s not angry at _you_. And besides, he’s not…he’s not out of control. You know?” Ella had to understand that he wasn’t like Kyle Conway.

But of course Ella had to push; she could never accept a simple answer. “If he’s so in control, why’d he leave?”

Maeva pursed her lips. “To make sure he _stays_ in control, I think. He’ll come back and he’ll be fine, all right? Do you believe me?”

She held her breath.

Ella snuck a few glances towards the back door. “Yeah,” she said finally. “I just wish he _weren’t_ angry.”

 _He’s only angry because he loves you,_ Maeva wanted to say, but she could imagine how dangerous those words would be for Ella—for Ella, whose biological father had probably justified his anger _against her_ with so-called love for her. “He just doesn’t want anyone to hurt you,” she said instead.

“Emi _didn’t_ hurt me, not really.”

That discussion was a battle to pick another day. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked instead.

Ella looked slightly wary. “Tell you what?”

“Why didn’t you tell us Emiliano was the one who…”

She frowned confusedly. “You didn’t know him. You wouldn’t’ve known what I was even talking about.”

“We knew him eventually,” Maeva pointed out.

“Yeah, and then he was my _friend_.”

“Ella…” Maeva trailed off. Her own parents hadn’t been perfect and their ugly divorce was an experience she could never really shake, but even she wouldn’t have kept something like this from them. She would’ve known that this kind of thing was what you were supposed to tell parents, and she would’ve trusted them to want to know. The fact that it didn’t seem to have even _occurred_ to Ella to mention her history with Emiliano was….

Now Ella looked concerned. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m really sorry.”

“I know,” Maeva said quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Tell you what: you and I can hang out together until Dad gets back, just the two of us. What do you wanna do? Paint? Play with your dolls?”

Ella tilted her head shrewdly. “Can we watch a movie?”

They tried to limit her time spent on screens as much as possible now, while they could, before she became a teenager. Which made movies and TV shows a special treat. Maeva double-checked that the chicken would be okay left unattended if she set a timer, and then she nodded. “C’mon, then. You can pick out your favorite.”

Ella spun around to run into the living room. They ended up snuggled together on the couch watching _How To Train Your Dragon_. When Micah came back in halfway through, he wordlessly sat on the other side of Ella, but left an inch or two between them.

Which didn’t stop Ella from wriggling out from under Maeva’s arm to tuck herself against him.

~

Ella

At dinner, Mom and Dad told her more about what happened. They told her Emi asked to talk to them, ’cause Emi wanted them to know…all the bad things he’d done. Ella couldn’t help feeling proud of him, even though she kinda thought he should’ve known it’d turn out like this.

The next day was Sunday, and Mom and Dad wanted to talk to Matt, which was how they ended up outside of Matt’s church right before lunch. But Ella hesitated before going up the path to the door. The flower garden was really pretty, and she liked the dark green trees surrounding the building, and she liked the gray stones making up the walls. But she really only had one happy memory here—from when Matt and Karen got married. Then, the church had been _beautiful_. Lights everywhere, and silky white streamers, and flowers.

But the other two times she’d been here, it’d been awful. There was that time when Matt found her in the basement, hiding under the bed because people upstairs were shooting. And Matt had gotten shot. Then there was the time that she’d gotten sick from devil’s hell and Matt took her to the basement. She barely remembered the basement. She mostly just remembered the nightmares of Mom and Dad leaving her.

But she blinked and reminded herself that Dex wasn’t after her anymore. He was basically her friend now! And Mom and Dad were never gonna leave her. In fact, Mom was glancing back with a soft smile—she’d noticed Ella lagging behind. Elizabeth and Kyle wouldn’t have noticed or cared. Taking a deep breath, Ella hurried to catch up and walked the rest of the way inside.

Matt was right there to meet them. He grinned at her. “Hey,” he whispered. “I thought I heard you. What’re you doing here?”

Oh, were they supposed to be quiet? There didn’t seem to be anything too fancy or important going on, but there _were_ some people in some of the weird seats (like indoor benches) talking to each other. It all looked very grownup.

“We wanted to talk with you,” Dad was murmuring, “if that’s okay.”

“’Course,” Matt said. “Mass just finished and I have nowhere I have to be.”

They started talking about Emi, about everything Mom and Dad already told Ella. She wanted to hear what Matt thought, and she listened long enough to hear Matt’s uncomfortable apologies for all the secrets he’d kept. But then they started talking about apartments and water, and also for some reason they all thought Matt and Karen’s baby had something to do with Emi (Ella got to meet her once, and she was _adorable_ ) and it got kinda confusing and boring. Ella wandered a bit away, looking around.

There were pillars here and there—she remembered hiding behind one of them with Matt when Dex was trying to shoot them. And there were lots of candles everywhere. Ella liked candles, liked the different shadows they made, but there was no way Mom would ever let Ella have _nearly_ that many candles all at once.

One thing was creepy, though. There was a statue or something of a man up on the wall. She got closer to look up at him. He was almost naked, pinned with what looked like nails at his wrists and ankles. And there was a crown on his head. Like a flower crown, except this one looked really ugly and sharp.

“You must be Miss Vallier,” a deep voice said.

Ella jumped and spun around. There was a man in a black suit with what looked like a little white piece of paper stuck in his collar. He had dark skin and no hair, like Dad, but he had more of a beard and he was staring down at her through glasses. She nodded shyly.

“I’m Father Driscoll,” he said. “I work here.”

She was confused and a little upset that he thought he could just say something like that. “You’re not my dad.”

“Oh,” he laughed, “I know. That’s just what they call me. Like doctor or teacher. I’m called a father because I’m supposed to take care of God’s children on earth. I’m supposed to help people however I can.”

“Do I have to call you that, though?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said easily. “My first name’s Timothy. And I take it those are your parents over there.” He waved his hand back towards the front of the church.

“I got bored,” she explained.

“Maybe I can help with that. Would you like the grand tour?”

“I’ve _been_ here before,” she pointed out. Did he think she didn’t know anything?

“Of course, of course. In that case, do you have any questions for me?”

She pointed at the statue. “What’s he doing up there?”

Timothy let out a long, uneasy sigh. “That’s a very good question, Miss Vallier.” He didn’t even sound like he was just saying that. He seemed to think.

She waited, figuring he’d give her some little kid story that wouldn’t really explain anything. She’d probably have to ask Matt later.

“Do you know what a substitute is?” Timothy asked finally.

She nodded. “Like a substitute teacher.”

“Exactly. A substitute does something in someone else’s place. And then…I don’t suppose you know what atonement is.”

“A tone? Like, music?”

“Atonement,” he corrected. “Some people think of it as covering over mistakes, like…if you get a stain on your shirt, but you cover it with your jacket. But it’s more accurate to say that it’s cleaning up the mistakes altogether. Like putting the shirt in the washing machine.”

Ella wondered if he said that last part just because she had a tiny spaghetti sauce stain on her shirt. She tried to cover it with her hand. “But what’s that got to do with him?”

Timothy followed her gaze up to the man. “Well, we believe God sent him to do both those things for us. His name is Jesus, and he’s God’s own son.”

“God has a son?” she blurted out.

Timothy nodded, but didn’t explain, which was frustrating. “Jesus is also a substitute like your teacher, except that instead of teaching a class for the real teacher, he’s taking the consequences for the real sinner, and he’s cleaning us from our sins at the same time.” He paused. “You know what consequences are, right?”

“Like a punishment?”

He glanced back at her. “Yes and no. We call some things natural consequences. That’s like if you throw a ball in the air and it falls down. No one shoved it down—gravity made it come back down. But there are also consequences like punishments. Sinners get both kinds of consequences.”

He said it all matter-of-fact, but it didn’t make sense. “Sinner?”

“That’s anyone who does bad things. So, all of us.”

“But…” She looked up at the man again. “Is he being tortured?”

“He’s dying,” Timothy said quietly. “The consequences of sin, of all the wrong things we do, is death. He’s taking that for us.”

She whirled on Timothy. “Why’s it have to be death?”

His voice got a little sad. “Because sin separates us from God, and God is the source of life, so sin brings death.”

That didn’t make any sense. Bad things were different. Some were _really_ bad, some were _awful_ , and others weren’t that bad at all. And she didn’t know that much about God, he seemed kinda like Santa Clause (a lot like Santa Clause actually—always watching, always judging, with a list of good people and a list of bad people), but if he was so powerful… “Couldn’t God just make the consequence not be dying, if God can do anything?”

“I’m not sure God _can_ do anything, actually. He can’t do things that go against his character. For example, breaking a promise is one thing God _can’t_ do. So personally I think he can do a miracle and stop the natural consequence of sin, but he can’t let sin go unpunished. If he did that, he wouldn’t be just.”

“Just what?”

“I mean, just like fair.”

But it sounded like he was saying the punishment for stealing a candy bar was death, and so was the punishment for killing someone, and that wasn’t fair at all. Besides, “I’ve done lots of bad stuff, and I’m not dead!”

“Very good point,” Timothy said. “Do you know what a representative is?”

“Um…” She heard the word used sometimes when people were talking about politics. Like, voting and stuff. But she didn’t really know what it meant.

“You know that Matt’s a lawyer, don’t you? Have you ever seen him in court?”

“ _I’ve_ been in court,” she told him proudly.

“Really?” He definitely looked impressed. “Doing what?”

She lifted her chin. “Testifying.”

“Who were you testifying for?”

“For _Matt_.”

“Ah.” Timothy looked sort of unhappy. “That was…complicated.”

“But it’s okay now,” Ella reassured him. “And Matt still gets to be a lawyer and now he’s helping Dex!”

“I’ve heard about that. And that’s actually a better example of what I’m talking about here, so thank you for bringing that up.” He winked. “Basically, Miss Vallier, you could say that Matt is _representing_ Dex. He’s making arguments for Dex, on Dex’s behalf. So we believe that God sent his own son, Jesus, to represent us. To say it would actually be _unfair_ for us to get all the consequences of our sin, since he took the consequences for us. If we got those consequences too, it would be too much. Does that make sense?”

No, because she still didn’t get the death-is-the-consequence thing. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but before she had the chance she heard Mom saying her name from behind. Turning around, she saw Mom hurrying across the church, with Dad and Matt behind her.

“We didn’t realize she’d gotten all the way over here,” Mom was apologizing. “I’m so sorry, um, Father, if she was bothering you…”

“Not at all,” Timothy said quickly. “She asks good questions, and I think she’s more determined to get a grasp on the concepts of propitiation and expiation than about ninety-nine percent of my parishioners.”

Matt laughed.

Well, Ella didn’t know what about half those words meant, but she _did_ have an idea how she could use some of all the new things she’d learned to get at what she wanted. She looked pleadingly up at Dad. “I learned about how when someone does bad things, sometimes someone else can be a substitute and take on all the, um, cons’quences and punishing _for_ them, and I learned that someone can argue for someone else.” There was also the whole cleaning thing, but she didn’t really get that part and didn’t know how she could clean Emi up anyway.

Matt had stopped laughing and looked like he was trying very hard to keep it that way.

She ignored him, focusing totally on Dad. “So if you’re angry at Emiliano still, maybe you could be angry at me instead?” And she didn’t _really_ want that, but she also didn’t _really_ think he could be all that angry with her all that long, so…maybe it would work out.

Micah’s mouth fell open. Then he turned to Timothy with a very severe look.

Timothy raised his hands defensively. “I—I didn’t say that, I did _not_ say that.”

But Maeva was smiling a little as she held out her hand. “C’mere, Ella. We need to ask you some questions about your friend Emiliano.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Elanor_Tasha for reminding me to Slow Down and Let Characters Breathe.


	5. All About to Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "It All Starts Now" by The Afters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=216NP9C0hL8).
> 
> I hope you all are taking care of yourselves in spite of all the chaos! And I hope this fic can provide some entertainment while we're all cooped up. Stay safe, darlings!

Micah

When they’d first gone looking for Matt, it was because Micah wanted to pin down exactly how much about Emiliano Matt had known and exactly why he’d kept it all a secret. It turned out that Matt’s answers were what he’d expected: Matt had known the whole story, and he hadn’t shared it because he’d wanted Emiliano to be able to protect Ella. His apology for all that didn’t really satisfy Micah, but Maeva was nodding along and Micah didn’t want to pick a fight in the middle of a Catholic church.

He still wasn’t sure how they ended up talking about housing, though, except that Matt was clearly worried for his…friend? Ally? Whatever Emiliano was to him. He said he and Karen had talked about letting Emiliano stay with them for a while, but their newborn complicated things. Not to mention that they didn’t exactly have a guest bedroom.

But Micah and Maeva did.

If Daredevil hadn’t spent the night in his home at least five times by now, if Micah hadn’t personally cooked steak for Spiderman when the kid stayed for dinner, if the Punisher hadn’t camped out on the neighbor’s roof to keep Ella safe, maybe Micah would be more shocked at what they’d decided. And maybe, if Ella hadn’t been attacked three times by now, once in their own home, he would think the risk wasn’t worth it. But Matt and Emiliano had both pointed out that there was no reason to expect the criminals of Hell’s Kitchen to quickly forgive or forget how Ella helped make sure Daredevil stayed out on the streets.

Micah had to accept that saying no at this point wouldn’t be because he actually thought Emiliano was a danger; it would just be because Micah couldn’t let go of the fact that Emiliano had kidnapped his daughter over a year ago—a fact that Maeva and Ella both seemed able to move past.

So Micah was on board. He just wasn’t happy about it.

They pulled Ella away from the priest and followed Matt to take the whole conversation outside. Ella turned her face up into the sun, beaming, her little hand grabbing onto Micah’s. “What’s going on?”

He’d give anything to keep her safe. But it was looking more and more like falling out of his comfort zone was the only way to do that. “Well, Ella, Emiliano’s not gonna be able to stay at his apartment much longer.”

She gasped in horror. “Why not?”

“We’re not really sure,” Maeva said awkwardly. “The person who owns his apartment doesn’t seem to like him. So…Matt’s gonna try to fix that, but in the meantime, he might need somewhere else to stay. Just for a bit.”

“He can stay with us!” Ella exclaimed. Then her eyes darted up towards Micah like she knew he was about to shoot down the idea.

Micah felt a stab of guilt, but he pushed it away. He refused to feel bad for being hesitant about inviting a kidnapper into their home, future actions of the kidnapper notwithstanding. “We were already talking to Matt and Karen about it,” he explained slowly. “The thing is, Matt’s right. Emiliano isn’t like what he used to be, and he’s risked his life to protect you. He almost died once, trying to protect you. So if— _if_ —” He couldn’t believe he was saying this. “ _If_ Emiliano really does need a place to say, and if he’s comfortable with it, we…we might offer him the chance to stay at our house. But only—”

Ella’s face lit up as she clasped her hands together under her chin. “Daddy, _really?_ ”

“But only if you’re okay with it,” Micah mumbled. A useless addendum.

Flinging herself at him, she wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

Grimacing, Micah hugged her back and rolled his eyes at Maeva.

“Ella?” Matt was taking over, crouching down in front of her. “Listen to me. Emiliano is…he’s different. I know you know that, but I’m not sure you know _how_ different. So you need to be careful, all right?”

She nodded seriously.

“I mean it. Don’t go looking into his stuff without his permission.” (Who knew what she’d find?) “Don’t make any sudden, loud noises, and don’t sneak up on him.” (He might react badly.) “Don’t go anywhere with him or do anything with him without asking your parents first.” (This was sounding more and more like a terrible idea.)

Ella sighed, world-weary. “Do I _really_ have to ask permission if he wants to watch _Frozen_ with me?”

Matt’s lips twitched. “No loopholes. So, yes, you do.”

That would be the easiest on everyone, they’d decided. Blanket rules with no exceptions.

Ella sighed again, but she was getting what she wanted most, and seemed to know better than to argue over technicalities.

Micah could only hope her compliance would last.

~

Emiliano

Truth be told, he did not fully understand the factors that led to him standing on the Valliers’ porch, with a duffel bag containing all his worldly goods slung over one arm and a bottle of wine (inexpensive, but it smelled nice enough) in his other hand. A hundred conversations must have taken place behind his back, and that was unnerving—he hadn’t even realized his fate was being decided.

And yet now he stood, summoning the courage to knock or ring the bell. A small part of him was convinced this was a mistake. But it wasn’t supposed to be _permanent_ , and that was a blessing. He could handle a week or two of living with this family.

(And if he couldn’t, he really had no business pretending he was anything more than Stick’s soldier.)

Giving his head a sharp shake, he smoothed down his jacket—a dark gray except for the grass stains he’d been unable to cleanse from the fabric—and knocked.

The door swung open almost instantly. “Emi!” Ella shrieked. “You’re here!” Her eyes flicked over him, and his duffel bag, and the wine bottle.

Emiliano suddenly remembered that wine was not an appropriate gift for a child and wished he’d brought chocolate or something instead.

Micah and Maeva appeared behind her like two guardian angels. “Oh,” Maeva murmured when she saw the bottle. “You didn’t have to.”

Shrugging, he held it out. She took it and handed it to Micah, who gave her a significant look before disappearing back into the house.

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” Ella asked.

He felt his temperature raise marginally. “These are my supplies.”

“Oh.” She looked relieved. “So where’s the rest of your stuff?”

Emiliano frowned, confused.

Maeva pulled Ella back. “Don’t be nosy.”

She turned her wide eyes up towards her mom. “I mean, if those are his supplies, where’s his stuff just for fun?”

“I think that’s all he has, honey,” Maeva whispered, shooting Emiliano an apologetic glance. “It’s not polite to ask people about, um…” She grimaced slightly. “We’ll talk about this later. Um, Emiliano, we have a spare room for you, if you want to follow me and get settled in.”

Feeling rather like he was sleepwalking, he followed them into the home, taking the time to observe it more thoroughly now that he wasn’t actively defending it from enemies. It was warm, and the front hallway was painted butter yellow and lined with photographs. There were plenty of Micah and Maeva, but none of Ella until recently.

There. The earliest one, he assumed, in a place of prominence at the end of the front hall: a picture of her at court with her new parents and the judge. They were all smiling.

Maeva steered him to the left before they reached the end of the hall, opening a door to the small guest bedroom. He quickly noted that there was only the one door, although the window looking out onto the neighbor’s yard was large enough to climb through. The bed—white sheets and white pillows, but with brighter accent pillows that matched the rug; apricot, that was the color—took up most of the space. Which was fine. He didn’t expect to spend much time within these four walls, and if he did, he didn’t expect to need much space.

Ella slipped around him to stand in front of him, tipping her head back to stare up at him. “Do you like it?” she asked shyly. “Mom let me choose the color. Everything in here used to be blue, but I thought the yellow would make you happy.”

He cleared his throat. “That’s very considerate of you.” His bag seemed too dirty to put on the pristine bed; he set it on the floor.

Silence fell, heavy and uncomfortable.

Maeva clapped her hands together with a light, musical laugh. “Well, I should probably go order dinner. We were _going_ to make it from scratch, but Ella thought it was more important to make your bedroom…”

“Happy,” Ella finished firmly.

Emiliano had no idea what possessed his mouth to say, “I can help.”

Maeva cocked an eyebrow at him. “With what?”

“Dinner. I…I could make it.” He clenched his hand in a fist behind his back. What would Stick say if he heard about this?

Maeva held very still as she regarded him, as if he were a wild animal or an alien. “You already brought the wine. You don’t have to do anything else.”

No, but anyone could stop at a store and buy a bottle of wine. Even Stick could’ve managed that, while he was still alive, if he’d seen a reason for it.

Making them a meal, though, the kind that he might have made Gio for a special occasion? That was different. That was proof that he could…well, be normal.

Besides. “Ella can’t have wine,” he pointed out.

Ella tugged at Maeva’s sleeve. “Mom, _please?_ I bet it’ll be really good. And I’ll help him so he knows where everything is!”

Maeva bit her lip, but she was smiling. “We’ll all help him, I think.” She nodded her head back towards the kitchen. “C’mon, everyone.”

And that was how Emiliano came to be standing in the middle of a perfectly average middle class American kitchen, thinking that perhaps he might have jumped into this too quickly. Not that he could retreat now; Ella was bouncing from excitement and Maeva was still smiling and even Micah stood at the ready by the pantry to fetch whatever was needed.

Emiliano took a deep breath. “Pasta,” he began.

Ella lit up. “Spaghetti?”

That hadn’t been the plan, actually, but it certainly was now. He nodded. “Where are your tomatoes?”

Maeva pulled a plastic bag out of the fridge. “We have a few.”

Emiliano frowned at the bag. “Store-bought?” He shook his head at himself. “Well, I can work with that. Do you have any carrots?”

Micah frowned back at him. “Carrots in spaghetti?”

“It adds a sweeter flavor,” Emiliano explained.

Maeva rooted through the fridge. “These are, um, kind of old, but…”

Emiliano accepted the vegetables she handed to him, and sniffed them. “They’ll do. Goat cheese?”

Ella made a face. “ _Goat_ cheese?”

“It’s good, sweetie,” Maeva said hurriedly. “Sorry, um, she hasn’t—”

Emiliano stifled a sigh. “It’s fine. Provolone will work.” He refused to consider that they didn’t have provolone. Sure enough, Micah thrust a package at him. “And your spices?” Emiliano asked.

Micah wordlessly showed him to a cabinet bearing row upon row of tiny vials of various spices.

Emiliano stared at them in horror.

“What?” Maeva asked, in a tone that suggested she already knew they were disappointing him.

He tried to sound matter-of-fact, but he thought he probably failed. “How…how old are these?”

She hummed nervously. “Mmmm, depends? We use the garlic a lot. But some of them might be…a year or two old.”

“I could cry,” he whispered under his breath.

Ella’s small hand tugged on his sleeve. “If you can’t make your spaghetti, I could show you how to make cookies, maybe?”

He shook himself. “No, of course not. I can make the spaghetti.” It would be pitiful compared to what it could be if he had better ingredients, but it wasn’t as if the Valliers would kick him out if the spaghetti was mediocre. They _did_ , however, stare at him in bewilderment when he asked specifically for sugar and cinnamon, which they didn’t store with their herbal spices. “It’s authentic,” he said pointedly.

Ella just giggled and asked if she could help.

She was more in the way than anything, but Emiliano was grateful for the distraction of guiding her through measurements and heat and timing. He didn’t want to think about how long it had been since he’d made this recipe. He was relieved when they finished it. Micah set the table (including glasses of wine for the adults; Ella was served milk) while Maeva buttered slices of so-called French bread, and then the whole family clustered around the table without needing a word of instruction. Emiliano tried not to look out of place as he mimicked them. Ella grabbed her fork.

“Ella,” Maeva whispered fiercely. “We wait for our guest.”

All three pairs of eyes at the table turned to Emiliano. Well, he’d been taught to always wait for the host to take the first bite. It appeared they were at an impasse.

To his surprise, Micah was the one who shrugged and started spinning spaghetti around the tines of his fork. Ella made an enthusiastic noise of approval and followed his lead.

“This is _so_ good,” she announced, mouth full.

“Try this,” Emiliano told her. Picking up his bread, he demonstrated how to use it to absorb the remaining sauce on his plate.

She copied him and licked her lips after she’d tasted it.

Maeva took a long sip from her wineglass. “So, you’re from Italy?”

“Pescara,” Emiliano answered, lifting his chin slightly.

They looked confused. “Sorry,” Maeva began, “where—”

“It’s a small province in southern Italy. I grew up there until Stick sent me on my—” He stopped. Best not to mention missions, probably.

But Ella tipped her head to the side. “Where’d you go?”

He glanced at Micah and Maeva, but they gave no indication as to how they wanted him to answer any questions. He decided to be vague. “Mountains.”

She looked delighted. “With snow?”

“…There was snow, yes. The sun was so bright shining on it that it was hard to see.”

“Were there animals?”

“Not out in the open, no. But in the valleys, where there were more trees, I saw footprints.” He remembered the shadowy imprints clear as day, the only sign of life amidst the cold, pure white. “Deer, rabbits. And I found a nest of chipmunks, once.” He’d gotten bored waiting for his human quarry and had gone off to investigate the tiny hearts he heard beating not far away. Stick would not have approved, but he’d found a mother with four young.

Ella gave a happy sigh. “I _love_ chipmunks. Sometimes we see them in the parks, but I wanna see them in the wild sometime. But I’ve never really _been_ in the wild.”

Maeva glanced between Emiliano and her daughter. “Maybe we could go camping sometime, Ella.”

“We’ve never been camping,” Micah added. “Except in a trailer.”

Maeva smiled. “Maybe Emiliano could show us something new.”

~

Maeva

After dinner, she sent Ella upstairs with strict instructions not to come down while the grownups talked. She and Micah were hopeful that she’d obey, but they took the further precaution of bringing Emiliano outside onto the front porch where they were guaranteed privacy.

“Unless she climbs onto the roof,” Emiliano noted.

Right. Unless that. “You’ll tell us if she does?” Maeva asked.

He nodded, his sharp, hazel eyes flicking between Maeva and Micah, completely unreadable. “Your family is very close,” he observed.

Maeva smiled encouragingly. “We try.”

“That’s unusual for the United States, yes?” he asked abruptly.

Maeva and Micah exchanged a glance. “Probably, yeah,” Micah admitted. “Statistically, yeah.”

“Why are you different?”

The interrogation was a bit unnerving, especially since they were the ones who needed to interrogate him. Maeva instantly felt guilty for thinking that, then firmly reminded herself that they still didn’t know exactly what they were getting into with Matt’s ninja friend. A little suspicion was necessary. “My parents were divorced,” she said evenly. “Micah and I wanted to give any kid we took in a different experience.”

“What about your parents?” Micah asked.

Emiliano’s eyes darkened. “My mother passed away. My father was…not a father.”

Maeva wondered just how reciprocal he’d be with the personal questions. “Forgive the stereotype, but, um, don’t Italian families usually include extended families?”

“A stereotype based on movies, or have you actually done your research?” he asked sardonically. “Should I expect questions about the mafia as well?”

Whoops. Maeva blushed and backed off. “Sorry. I was just—sorry.”

Emiliano waved his hand. “So what is it that you don’t want her to overhear?”

“Just some ground rules,” Micah said, his voice deceptively neutral. “Make this easier on everyone.”

“Of course.” Emiliano straightened ever so slightly. Maeva wasn’t even sure he was aware he’d done it.

Micah ran through the list: all Emiliano’s weapons needed to stay either in his room or on his person, and any weapons on his person were not to be unsheathed or brandished except in the case of an imminent threat—Matt had been emphatic on that one. Emiliano was also to stay on the first floor of the house. He could go out at night as long as he locked the window. But if there was any sign that criminals might follow Emiliano back to the home, he needed to either stop going out at night or find somewhere else to stay. He couldn’t invite anyone over without clearing it with Micah and Maeva first.

“And if you see Ella on the roof, tell her to get down,” Maeva added. It wasn’t a rule they’d talked about before, but it felt necessary.

Emiliano nodded and waited. And waited. Then he frowned. “Is that all?”

“You want more?” Micah asked skeptically.

“No, that’s not…I…” Emiliano cleared his throat. “Thank you. For the trust you’re putting in me.”

Maeva studied his face. Micah was still wary about the whole setup, she knew. But she kind of thought Emiliano might rise to the challenge. “You’ve earned it,” she said simply.

He opened his mouth, probably to argue.

She cut him off. “I mean, that spaghetti was _definitely_ the best spaghetti I’ve ever had.”

Emiliano looked startled; then his expression turned almost shy. He averted his eyes. “You’re welcome, then. For…the spaghetti.”

~

Matt

The next morning, Karen dashed off first thing for one of her PI cases, so Matt interwove caring for Gracie with his morning routine. He couldn’t wait for her to be able to be able to toddle around the apartment, to know how to jump on the furniture. He couldn’t wait to teach her how to climb and explore and, when she was older, how to defend herself. And maybe she could take gymnastics classes, so she could learn balance and flips and all of that in a slightly safer setting.

He couldn’t wait for her to start talking, sharing her thoughts and observations and asking questions. He couldn’t wait to teach her how to read, how to argue well, how to know when to compromise and when to stand by her convictions.

(To be fair, he still wasn’t the best at that last one.)

But even though right now she couldn’t do any of that, he was surprised by how much he just enjoyed being with her. She didn’t need to be able to do anything in particular for him to treasure the time spent with her.

He showered while she was still asleep—ears straining for any sound that she’d stirred—and fed her when she woke up, and held her on his hip while he double-checked that all the necessary files were in his bag. And while he got dressed and combed his hair, he talked to her.

This morning, he talked to her about Dex. “Because McDuffie whipped up an indictment in under a hundred and twenty hours of the arrest, Dex doesn’t have the right to a preliminary hearing. But that’s…that’s fine, I think.” He sighed, choosing a suit from the closet by touch. “It looks like McDuffie’s only bringing charges for what Dex did at the _Bulletin_ and at my church. Smart move, on her part. Those are serious crimes, and more importantly, Hell’s Kitchen felt personally attacked. A random juror won’t care so much about Dex shooting someone like Emiliano, ’cause no one knows who he is. And I don’t think the police even know that Dex is the one behind the other attack at the church, when he went after Ella with a sniper rifle.”

Gracie hummed.

“I’ll tell you more about that when you’re older,” he said as he dressed. Or maybe not? He wasn’t actually sure how much of his chaotic life Gracie needed to know about, aside from what she’d personally witness. (And what _would_ she personal witness? Better not to think about that.) Did he really have to go into detail about his history? “Anyway, that’s good for us. Well, going after Ella was inexcusable. But what happened with Emiliano, that was…that was a flashback. It’s different. I think. I guess it depends on what the psychologists say, though.”

She made an inquiring noise.

“Everything hinges on what’s actually wrong with him, psychologically,” Matt explained patiently, carrying her to the bathroom to smooth his hair into something acceptable for public viewing. “If he’s actually a psychopath, that’s…not great. There’s precedent establishing that even though antisocial personality disorder might be enough to get a not guilty verdict if defendants can’t understand their actions, it _also_ establishes that the disorder makes defendants dangerous and resistant to change. So, great, Dex might not get the death penalty. But…” Matt carried her back out to the living room for socks and shoes. “But he’ll get locked up either way, just in a facility instead of a prison.”

Gracie gurgled. She sure sounded opinionated.

“Yeah, it means he won’t be able to hurt anyone else or himself,” Matt admitted. “But he won’t…get better. He’ll just be…well, he’ll just be in limbo for the rest of his life.” He sighed again. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for.”

It felt wrong, though. The whole point of sparing Dex’s life was to give him the chance to try again, to try to find…light and love and goodness. Redemption. But Matt couldn’t imagine any of that thriving in New York’s high-security psychiatric facilities.

Setting her in his lap, he pulled on his socks and shoes. “So if it’s something else wrong with him, maybe that’d be better? But that’s up to the psychologist to figure out. Not much I can do. Or, well, it might not matter either way if the jury thinks he’s just evil.” Matt gave a one-shouldered shrug, careful not to jostle her. “So, yeah. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. What about you?”

Gracie babbled, delighted to be the focus of his attention.

And he’d gotten up early enough that there was no rush. They talked back and forth—he in actual English, she imitating him as best she could—for easily fifteen more minutes before his phone started chanting, _Foggy, Foggy, Foggy_.

“What’s up?” Matt asked. “We’re not meeting Dex until noon.”

“No, yeah, I know.” Foggy had the faux-casual tone of voice, the one he was _still_ convinced fooled everyone despite the fact that Matt had never witnessed its success. “I was just thinking we could meet at my place beforehand, go over some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Uh…brainstorming. Y’know. Stuff.”

There was definitely an ulterior motive here, but Matt didn’t mind agreeing. He could spend more time with Gracie tomorrow, and he had an ulterior motive himself: he’d only been around the new Stahl-Nelson puppy twice and was not adverse to seeing him again. Besides, there were already arrangements in place for Maggie to watch Gracie around lunchtime and she was happy to start babysitting earlier, so once she came to collect her granddaughter, Matt was off.

The thought crossed his mind he waited for Foggy to answer the door that maybe he was becoming a dog person. (The place smelled like waffles.) Or had he always been a dog person? He’d never exactly had much opportunity to find out. He was wondering idly if Dr. Richland would have any thoughts on how being a dog or cat person played out in the nature-vs-nurture debate when Foggy answered the door with an armful of puppy, wriggling with excitement.

Matt grinned. “Hey, Brady.”

“Do I not get even a hello?” Foggy huffed.

“Hello, Foggy,” Matt said dutifully.

“That doesn’t count, that was perfunctory.”

Matt simply shrugged and leaned in, letting Brady lick his cheek.

“Yeah, yeah,” Foggy muttered, but his grin was evident in his voice. “You have breakfast yet?”

“Uh…no.”

“Called it!” Foggy declared triumphantly. “Come indulge.”

“Waffles are an indulgence, now?” Matt asked, following him into the kitchen where he crouched down to scratch Brady’s ears.

“ _My_ waffles are an indulgence.” Whirling around, Foggy presented a plate with a flourish.

And yeah, Matt could tell by smell alone that they were basically dessert. He got back to his feet and held the plate out of Brady’s reach. It would be rude not to eat the waffles at this point, even though Matt usually avoided this much sugar in the morning, so he accepted the fork Foggy offered.

“Sit down?” Foggy asked, and…and his heartrate sped up, just a tiny bit. Then it sped up _more_ , most likely because he’d noticed it speeding up and realized Matt would be able to tell. “Humans aren’t meant to eat standing up,” he said quickly. “We’re not bovines or…equestrians.”

Matt raised his eyebrows, slightly nervous himself now. Before Foggy found out about Daredevil, Matt had never had reason to feel nervous around Foggy. _Never_. “Equines, you mean,” he corrected. “And why does this feel like an intervention?”

Foggy laughed, but there was a hint of tension under it. Foggy was nervous, too. “Did you do something I should be intervening about?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Well, just give yourself time, buddy.”

Matt snorted. That was probably true.

“Actually, though…”

Matt braced himself.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this case?” He held out a hand defensively. “I’m _not_ saying you should drop it. I learned _that_ lesson when we took Ella’s case, I swear. I’m just saying…this is gonna get personal, right?”

“Every case is personal, Foggy.” Which was a true statement, technically, but deliberately missed Foggy’s point.

Foggy gave a longsuffering sigh. “You know what I mean. Please don’t make me spell it out.”

Yeah, Matt didn’t really want to hear Foggy go into detail about all the ways that Dex was different than their other clients. He didn’t want to hear about how Dex stole Matt’s suit and everything it represented; he didn’t want to hear about how Dex had systematically targeted Foggy, Karen, and Ella—all because of Matt. He didn’t want to hear about how Dex had taken Ray Nadeem from his family. And he didn’t want to hear about how Dex had taken Father Lantom from his church.

Clenching his jaw, Matt focused on smoothing down Brady’s fluffy fur. “If you’re not saying I should drop the case, what exactly _are_ you saying?”

“Just…look.” Foggy folded his arms across his chest. “I need you to promise me some things.”

“Or what?” Matt asked sharply, which really wasn’t fair—he’d given Foggy, his partner as well as his best friend, every right to lay out some specific expectations. For reference, see the very premise of the Bad Decision Spectrum. “Sorry,” Matt said quickly. “Just—what things?”

“First, you need to keep going to therapy,” Foggy said bluntly.

Matt tried not to visibly bristle. “Wow.” Obviously, Foggy was _right_ , but it stung to hear him say it like that.

“Second, you need to tell me if there’s any part of this case that’s…that’s worse for you.”

“Parts of it’ll be worse for you, too,” Matt pointed out, and he wasn’t trying to be argumentative, he really wasn’t. This was just that kind of case.

Foggy seemed to take a moment to process that. “Okay, fair. So this one goes for both of us: if there’s part of the case that’s worse for us to deal with, we need to let the other one take point. Okay?”

“And if something’s bad for both of us?”

Foggy hesitated. “Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it. Third—”

“How many rules do you have?”

“Third…” Foggy hesitated again, like he was second-guessing this one. “Third, you need to, uh…tell me what you’re feeling.”

Matt’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“Not, like, a play-by-play of every second of your emotional state, but…weekly updates, yeah.”

He was…he was _serious_ about this. Matt couldn’t decide whether he was more offended or confused. He stopped petting Brady. “I have a therapist, Foggy.” And he’d actually been attending sessions semi-regularly.

“I know, and normally that’d be enough, but…this is our firm, Matt. I gotta know if you’re, like, extra stressed or something.”

Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t normal.”

“ _Normal_ partners volunteer that information,” Foggy mumbled.

Matt had no idea what evidence Foggy was using to reach that conclusion, but he was also well aware that Matt of all people was probably not qualified to challenge him on the concept of normalcy. Besides, it wasn’t that big of a deal, what Foggy was asking. Matt was already supposed to keep track of his emotions week-to-week for his therapist (not that he was very consistent at that, but still) so in theory it wouldn’t be hard to give Foggy an update.

It was the principle of the thing, though.

Then again, Matt had to admit that over recent years he’d kind of lost the right to stand on principle with Foggy. And Dex was more important, anyway; Matt could put up with the embarrassment if it was the only way to keep Foggy helping Dex. Besides, somewhere deep inside, Matt appreciated Foggy’s concern, awkward though the display was.

Brady, impatient, nudged Matt’s hand with his wet nose. Matt gave the puppy a final scratch and stood up, trying not to sound too irritated as he said, “Deal. Do I need to sign something?”

Foggy slouched in palpable relief. “Nope, nope, nothing that serious. Just, um, eat your waffles and let’s get ready to see Dex, yeah?”

~

Dex didn’t have a cellmate; the prison was smart enough to get that right, at least. And with his, well, propensity for weaponizing everything his hands touched coupled with his previous escapes, the prison had stuck him in maximum security when they weren’t bringing him out to meet his lawyers, a compromise Foggy had managed to secure. (He insisted it was because he hated the maximum security wing, which Matt knew to be true. But it was also true that Foggy understood Dex well enough, factually at least, to know that Dex needed a break from the monotony of one enclosed place.) The fact that Dex had never facilitated his own escapes was, apparently, irrelevant.

All in all, Matt wasn’t thrilled to realize that even being in maximum security wasn’t enough to keep Dex safe.

He was hurt worse today. The skin on his cheekbone and above his eye was inflamed (bruised, probably visibly), he was limping, and he smelled ever so slightly of copper. There was a cut on bicep, under his sleeve, still scabbing over. And his knuckles were bruised; whatever had happened, he’d fought back. Matt narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to ask what had happened.

But Foggy beat him to it. “They treating you okay in here?” he asked conversationally.

Dex did a double-take, turning from Matt to Foggy. “Uh…who?”

“Everyone,” Foggy said, still casual.

Dex tugged at his sleeve. “I’m okay.”

“Well, let us know if that ever changes,” Foggy said lightly. “It’s kinda what we’re here for.”

“I can handle a few stupid hotshots,” Dex scoffed.

Matt tilted his head. “Who are these hotshots, Dex?”

Dex stiffened like he realized he’d said the wrong thing. “Nobody. Just wannabe gangbangers.”

Right. Between his history as an FBI agent and the scope of the damage he’d inflicted on Hell’s Kitchen, it made sense that those inside prison would hate him just as much as those outside. “Well, keep your head down, yeah? We don’t need the DA thinking you’re trying to get involved in gang wars in here.”

Dex hesitated before he nodded.

Foggy must have noticed because he hurried to reassure him. “We’ll talk to the warden, see if we can get you better security. And if that fails, we’ll get to bring a civil suit. Sounds fun, right, Matt?”

Dex gave a short, dry laugh. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I just said it’ll be _fun_ ,” Foggy argued.

“Anyway,” Matt said pointedly. “We came because we need to hear your perspective on the attacks. We’ll go from there to figure out your defenses.”

“I already told the police, and the PD,” Dex protested. “And…and I thought you guys already decided to do the insanity defense thing,” he added in a mumble.

“We need to hear your story again,” Matt said firmly. They needed to make sure it hadn’t changed, and this wouldn’t be the last time they asked to hear it. “And as for your defense, that’s ultimately your call. But we need to hear you tell your story now so we can get a sense of whether or not you’ll be able to testify convincingly, if it comes to it.”

Dex’s breathing got a little heavier, like he was feeling the literal weight of this responsibility. “Uh. Okay. Sure. Sounds good.”

“We can take a break whenever you need to,” Foggy said, catching Matt a little off guard.

Dex nodded distractedly. “Where do I start?”

Matt wet his lips. “The _Bulletin_ attack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact that's COMPLETELY unrelated to the current chapter, but: in my immigration law class the other day, the professor brought up Datura stramonium for Reasons, and datura stramonium is the base for the devil's hell drug, so I randomly knew all about it.
> 
> Also I know I'm behind on responding to comments, but I promise I love them and stare at them in delight! And then I...forget to actually respond, because I'm dumb. But I promise I'll get to them! <3


	6. Comfort Zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "The Great Unknown" by Matty Mullins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf6JVhLR540).

Foggy

Dex leaned back in his chair like the whole thing was an inconvenience. Then again, that was exactly how Matt looked whenever Foggy or Karen (or Claire or the Valliers or even _Brett_ at this point, probably) tried to get him to go to the hospital. Foggy just didn’t know Dex well enough to be able to tell if Dex was actually annoyed or if he was actually using annoyance to cover up that he really felt a teeny sliver of remorse.

“Where do I start?” he asked.

“Wherever you want,” Foggy said. It was important to let clients talk, and talk, and talk. They didn’t always know what facts would matter from a legal perspective, and better lawyers than Foggy had limited the scope of what a client recounted by trying to keep things focused, and accidentally nudged the client to leave out facts that could’ve changed everything.

Besides, Foggy was just as good at listening to irrelevant chatter as he was at making it.

Dex shifted a little in his chair. He was almost slouched, like he was trying to look casual, but he held his head too stiffly for that to convince anyone. He lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Okay. Whatever. This old man showed up. Felix Manning, you know him?” He blinked, probably at the way Matt started clenching his superhero jaw. “Okay, yeah, you do. Anyway, him. He shows up at my place, says he’s got a _car_ ready.” His voice fell into a terrible attempt at an English accent. He shrugged. “So I go, right? And he’s got the suit in there and everything, and the van’s big enough that I change into it right there while he’s driving. He drops me off, and…” He trailed off, gave a little flick of his hand.

Which apparently was supposed to signify, _Then I intentionally killed or injured about fifty people. Give or take._

Matt wasn’t satisfied; he leaned closer. “And once you were at the _Bulletin_ , how did you proceed?”

Dex’s eyes locked onto Matt’s (well, kind of) and hardened. “I finished the job.”

“What was the job, exactly?”

“Make everyone hate Daredevil. Oh, and, uh…kill Jasper Evans.”

A muscle twitched in Matt’s jaw.

Foggy still couldn’t tell if Dex was being actually casual or forced casual. Matt probably could, though. Could read remorse in Dex’s breathing, or lack of empathy in the way his hands were folded in his lap. So Foggy bit back the question he itched to ask: _How did you feel when you did it?_

But Matt’s head tilted down; if he were sighted, he would’ve been staring at Dex’s heart. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I don’t—I don’t know, I don’t—” Dex glanced at Foggy, then somewhere past both Matt and Foggy, like he was looking for someone to come rescue him from the conversation. “No. I didn’t.”

“Try again,” Matt said softly.

Foggy suppressed a shiver.

Dex’s fingers twisted together; he hid his hands under the table but couldn’t hide the way his neck was reddening. “Shit. _Shit_.”

“Dex,” Matt said, still in that soft voice.

Foggy stared in shock as tears sprang to Dex’s brown eyes. “Look, I—I know I’m not supposed to, it’s—it’s sick, I know that, but I was—I got ’em all, you know? Like I was supposed to, I did the job, and I—I cut through ’em like wet tissues, like they—like I—” Dropping his elbows onto the table, he clutched his head in his hands. “It all happened so _fast_ , it was so _smooth_.”

Foggy closed his eyes and saw the lights shut off, heard Matt telling him to go find Karen. Heard the screams. Saw the man in the devil suit flash him a smile and cock his arm to throw his weapon.

A hand landed on his thigh; Foggy snapped his eyes open and back to the present. It was Matt’s hand, but from the look of him Matt’s attention was still focused on Dex.

“Adrenaline,” Matt said quietly. “And…there’s something satisfying about landing a good hit, right?”

Foggy suddenly couldn’t swallow and he knew his heart was going crazy. He took a deep breath that made Dex send him a desperate look that Foggy didn’t understand.

“You enjoyed it in the moment,” Matt went on calmly, reasonably, “but what about now? Looking back?”

Dex blinked and his tears dropped onto the table. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It might.”

His fingers curled into his hair; a vein stood out in his neck. “Stop. I don’t—” He gritted his teeth. “I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

Well, he was gonna have to.

“All right,” Matt murmured. “We’ll take a break.”

Dex gave a single, jerky nod. He was still grabbing his hair so hard it must hurt.

Brushing his hand against Foggy’s arm, Matt edged his chair back to stand up, and the guards took that as their cue to move in. Dex flinched when they got close.

“He’s fine,” Matt said sharply. “We’re just taking a break.” He turned his head towards Dex, earnest expression begging Dex to trust him. “We’ll come back tomorrow, all right? We’ll talk about the, uh, other incidents.”

Other mass murders. Right.

“Do your breathing exercises,” Matt encouraged him, reminding Foggy that Sister Maggie had given Dex some practical tools to combat whatever was freaking him out right now. Sadly, Sister Maggie didn’t seem to have any more insight into the _why_.

Dex shot Matt a desperate, scathing _look_ , and then it was too late to do anything else: the guards were dragging him away, except for the one that stuck around to not-so-subtly herd Matt and Foggy from the room. Probably worried that there’d be a fight like last time.

“We’re going, we’re going,” Matt snapped.

“Easy, buddy,” Foggy said under his breath, steering him into the corridor.

Once outside, Foggy turned on him. He tried not to sound like he was _attacking_ him, but he may not have been one hundred percent successful. “Dude, what was that?”

Matt huffed, definitely still irritated with the guards. “Which part?”

“That…you know, all that stuff you said. About the adrenaline and whatnot. Especially the whatnot.”

Now Matt’s eyebrows pinched together. “Not sure what you mean.”

Foggy wished he had something to fidget with. As it was, he stuck his hands in his pockets. “All that stuff about, you know…enjoying hurting people. Are you saying…I mean, do _you_ …?”

There was a weird moment where Matt somehow managed to look guilty and impassive at the exact same time. “This shouldn’t be news to you, Foggy. We’ve…you know I _want_ to do what I do, it’s not exactly forced upon me, so…”

“Yeah, because you love every random person in this city like they’re your own family! Not because you like the punching-people part _specifically_.”

Matt’s fingers twitched, looking like they very much wanted to wrap around his cane, but he’d mostly given up that prop by now. “You knew, Foggy.”

Foggy heaved a sigh that would’ve put a Victorian lady to shame. “Okay, fine. I guess I just didn’t expect to see you bonding with a _psychopath_ about it.”

Matt shifted his weight. “You, uh…you remember when we talked about how parts of this case might be, uh…harder for one of us than the other? If this…if this is harder for you, I can handle it.”

Foggy threw up his hands in exasperation. “This is, like, our whole case.”

Matt offered a wry, crooked grin. “My point stands.”

“ _No,_ ” Foggy said emphatically. “This whole thing is weird and creepy and will probably give me second-hand trauma, but no way. You’re not dealing with this alone.”

“I could. If I had to.”

“Congratulations, you won’t have to. I’m not leaving you with this.” Foggy didn’t know quite what else to do to convey how serious this was, so he settled held out his hand for a fist bump, and let himself enjoy the shy smile Matt offered when he returned it.

~

Foggy could admit to himself that meeting up with Ned and Michelle afterwards was a relief. Neither Matt nor Peter were there—Matt because he wanted to follow a lead (a human trafficking ring that was either starting up or restarting in Hell’s Kitchen), and Peter because apparently things in Queens were still as crazy as they’d been last time Foggy talked to him.

Which was the main reason he’d asked Ned and Michelle to meet up.

Also, frankly, Ned (in his bright red shirt bearing the bold proclamation that _Jar-Jar was a Sith Lord_ ) and Michelle (wearing a shirt with some Latin phrase that Foggy thought he should probably know) were a breath of fresh air after the creepiness that was watching Dex recount his mass murders.

So anyway, they all met up at a pizza place to exchange wisdom. Which meant that for the first half hour or so, Ned and Michelle updated Foggy on the kids’ new lingo, apps, and whatever else, which made Foggy feel extremely old and wizened. After that, it was Foggy’s turn to impart all the wisdom he had to offer, and he intended to make the most of this rare opportunity to be give it to them straight without Peter or Matt overhearing.

“First things first,” Foggy said, leaning in and feeling like Gandalf with the Hobbits when Ned and Michelle leaned in too, staring up at him. “Matt and Peter, they’re always gonna be walking this line between normal life and vigilante life. But the hard thing is that the problems they’re facing in vigilante life are always gonna look more imminent than problems in normal life. Usually because there are weapons involved. Sometimes hostages. So, y’know, it makes sense. _But_ , if they’re not careful, they’ll get so lost in the vigilante life that they lose touch with their anchor. And it’s our job to help them…not do that.”

“How?” Michelle asked, setting her pizza slice aside and watching Foggy through narrowed eyes. She always did that, like she was scrutinizing him for any mistake or inconsistency. She was more unnerving than a court reporter.

“Well, it’s always a red flag if they’re injured and won’t tell you about it. Note,” Foggy added, holding up one finger, “that it’s not necessarily a red flag that they’re _injured_. Even, like, excessively injured. As long as they tell you about it. But once the injuries are a secret, that’s when you know they’re putting up a wall between what they do at night and…you.”

Ned nodded gravely, but Michelle was shaking her head. “Peter heals super fast. Half the time we don’t get the chance to see his injuries.”

Good point; Foggy hadn’t taken that into account. “Just…secrets in general, then.” Peter didn’t strike him is a very good liar—even worse than Matt, if you could imagine that. And he was confident that Ned and Michelle knew him well enough to be able to tell when he was keeping stuff from them.

“What else?” Michelle pressed.

“Okay, well…this might sound dumb, but keep an eye on his school if you can. If he suddenly stops caring about school as much as normal, that’s a red flag. Especially if he’s literally skipping classes. And then, um…I don’t know how much you guys do this already, but if you try to hang out regularly, that’ll help. Both because it’s a red flag if he stops showing up and because it’ll give him lots of chances to open up if…if something bad happens.”

“And how do we get him to do _that?_ ” Michelle asked pointedly.

Foggy sighed. “I’m still figuring that one out. At this point, I can mostly just tell you what _not_ to do.”

Ned nodded again; Michelle looked ready to take notes.

“First, I dunno how good you guys are at this, but…listening works better than talking. Like, if you _have_ to say something, make it a question, not a statement. And…” Foggy dumped an unreasonable amount of garlic sauce on his pizza. “This sounds weird, I know, but don’t overreact. In fact, I recommend underreacting whenever possible.”

“What if he’s _dying?_ ” Ned blurted out.

“Then forget everything I just said and call 9-1-1 or Claire. Or call 9-1-1 _and_ Claire.” He’d given them Claire’s number on their second Friends-of-Superheroes club. “But if he’s not actually literally dying, and just making, like, dumb choices, you should probably try to stay chill. Remember, from their perspective, we’ll never quite _get it_ , right?” Foggy waved his hand, a little sadly. “We’ll never really understand the stakes and all that. So if we come off extreme or reactionary, it’ll just make it easier for them to dismiss what we’re saying. Does that make sense?”

“Can I still call him an idiot to his face?” Michelle asked.

“Wouldn’t recommend it, no.”

“Can I tell him not to _be_ an idiot?”

“See, that implies the exact same thing.”

Michelle pursed her lips, clearly displeased.

“Another thing,” Foggy said, hoping to distract her. “Peter was telling me the other day about…well.” He paused. Didn’t really want to give away the specifics of what Peter told him, probably in confidence. “Apparently things are getting worse in Queens, that’s all.”

A tiny crease appeared between Ned’s eyebrows. “Yeah, I hear sirens all the time now.”

Foggy nudged his plate aside so he could fold his hands on the table—all to reinforce the significance of what he was about to say. “I think I know a guy who can help.”

“Not Matt?” Ned guessed.

Foggy nodded gravely. “His name’s Emiliano.”

“Is he any good?” Michelle asked skeptically.

“He taught Matt how to use knives,” Foggy said loftily.

Michelle raised her eyebrows. Duly impressed.

So technically, Foggy hadn’t cleared this with Matt yet. He hadn’t even checked with Emiliano. But though most people might not think beyond Foggy’s optimistic, warm-hearted, charming self with luxurious locks and impeccable fashion, the truth was that Foggy Nelson knew how to be strategic when the need arose. And he knew in this instance that both Matt and Emiliano would have a harder time arguing if Foggy mentioned accidentally-on-purpose that he’d already gotten Ned and Michelle’s hopes up.

And from the looks on their faces, he’d done just that.

~

Claire

It was late when she got home from work. Not bothering to turn on any lights, she just slumped down onto her couch, exhausted. Within the first hour of her shift, she’d already sewn three different people shut where they’d gotten sliced open in one way or the other. One of them, whose own broken bone was the sharp thing that cut through his skin, straight up admitted Daredevil was responsible. Patients like him always made her hesitate, just for a second. If Matt took issue with them, it meant they’d been trying to do something terrible.

But it wasn’t her job to judge who did or didn’t deserve treatment. Some days she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

And tonight, for whatever reason, it was especially hard. Maybe she was just tired? Well, and part of her was definitely worried about Matt. Emiliano told her about the pepper spray incident—he seemed to pretty much just find it amusing, but all Claire could think about was what if the next person got more creative than pepper spray. What if they used a noise (Emiliano told her about that sound at Ella Valliers’ house, supersonic or whatever) or a different scent that knocked him entirely out of commission? What if he didn’t have Emiliano watching his back? What if it hit Emiliano just as bad?

 _You knew it would be like this,_ she reminded herself sternly. _Loving them both._

Matt and Emiliano had to deal with the fact that she went out at night without knowing how to punch someone’s face in. She had to deal with the fact that they went out at night actively looking for people who wanted to punch _their_ faces in.

It was worth it. It was just hard, sometimes.

Sighing, she toed off her shoes, stretching onto her back to stare up at the dark ceiling. She shouldn’t just lie here. She should go to bed. The sooner today ended, the better.

No such luck, though. There was a near-silent sound on her fire escape, so she got up and hurried to open the window. She was only slightly disappointed to be greeted by Matt’s masked face. “You okay? Why didn’t you call?”

“I’m not hurt.” One corner of his mouth quirked up sheepishly. “Well, not a lot. I wasn’t gonna come in at all if it sounded like you were doing anything productive.”

“I was lying on the couch,” she grumbled, pushing the window open higher for him and ignoring for now the fact that she really needed to have a conversation with him about boundaries and spying on her. “Trust me, that’s being productive.”

“I can go,” he offered.

“You said you’re injured.”

“I said not a lot.”

She rolled her eyes, expecting she’d be doing a lot of that tonight now that he’d shown up. “Get in, Matt.”

His small smile was a touch relieved and a touch guilty as he clambered in through the window, boots landing not as silently as usual. “And how’s your night?”

“Getting worse, now that you’re here.” It was a joke and she knew he knew it. Not only that, it was a flat-out lie: having him here and relatively healthy assuaged her worry for now, and it was impossible to be around him without some of his earnest desire for goodness rubbing off, that inextinguishable belief that a single person really could make a difference. She needed that tonight.

Pulling off his mask, he settled on the couch while she stepped in close, scrutinizing him. She frowned. He’d gotten stabbed fairly deep under his ribs, leaving a fresh tear in his shirt that was still bleeding. She hissed through her teeth while she stepped back to find the first aid kit.

“Looks worse than it is,” he said. “Should just need a couple stitches, and I could do them on my own, probably, but…”

“You haven’t gotten tagged with a knife in a while,” she couldn’t help commenting. Wasn’t Emiliano the one who’d taught him to get better at dealing with them? She’d gotten the impression that there wasn’t a criminal alive in Hell’s Kitchen who could cut either one of them—not on their regular nightly patrols, at least, not unless something else was making the situation more intense.

His eyes narrowed as he stripped off his shirt to give her access to the wound. “They had an air horn.”

She almost dropped the first aid kit. “ _Air horn?_ ”

“Yeah—”

“Your ears?” Claire asked, reaching up to tilt his head.

He complied, letting her angle his head in different directions. “They’re fine now.”

“Still. That’s a lotta forethought for a mugger.” She kept her voice light, like that had a chance of actually masking her worry from him of all people. If all the criminals started running around with air horns, would he be able to do what he did?

And if he couldn’t be Daredevil, would he realize it before it was too late?

She started cleaning the wound. The blade must’ve been jagged, because the cut just looked nastier the more she cleaned it. “Who did this?”

He didn’t answer immediately; when she glanced up, his expression had darkened. “Traffickers,” he said at last.

“Like…drugs, guns…?”

His gloved hand clenched around his mask. “Humans.”

Claire stilled her movements, any levity in the situation vanishing without a trace. She wasn’t a fan of criminals in general, but between how often she saw trafficking victims in the hospital (always denying the situation, but Claire knew the signs even if some of the doctors didn’t) and how she’d come so perilously close to joining them, thanks to Vladimir…

“Did you get them?” she asked quietly.

His jaw tightened. “No,” he said after a moment. “I, uh…I had to get out of there.”

That was so unlike him that Claire blinked in surprise. “Why?”

He gestured frustratedly at the bleeding wound.

“Yeah, but…” He’d gone after Vladimir’s men with multiple stab wounds, at least two broken ribs, and a probable concussion.

“I’m trying to be more careful for once, all right?” he snapped.

“No, I’m glad,” Claire said quickly, starting on the stitches.

“I mean, it’s just, with Gracie, I can’t…” He trailed off, almost helplessly.

“I’m _glad_ ,” she repeated firmly. How many times had she wished the boy knew when to quit? Still, she couldn’t help asking, “And…the victims?”

His voice was tense when he answered; someone else might’ve been able to pass it off as pain from the stitches, but he was too used to that by now and she knew better. “They weren’t there. I’ll go back, I’ll find them, I just…”

“You have to take care of yourself,” she said softly.

His eyes flicked up to the ceiling like that could mask his derision. He didn’t answer.

She mutely set to work on the stitches. It wasn’t too deep a wound, shouldn’t need very many. At least, not many by _his_ standards. But the silence stretched out, and normally silence between them was comfortable, but this one was not.

“You know,” she said carefully, “you mentioned once that you guys had a mentor in common.”

She was pretty good at reading the human body, and she caught the way his stiffened up almost imperceptibly. “Yeah,” he said, giving nothing else away.

Well, this was obviously not a stress-free subject, but she wasn’t about to back down now that she’d broached it. “You also sort of…apologized for not telling me about him. Said he instilled bad things in you, or something.”

“What about it, Claire?”

She took a deep breath. “You didn’t actually tell me _what_ he did.”

Matt briefly raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that even as he angled his head away from her. “You never asked.”

“I’m asking now,” she said gently.

He seemed to be staring at her microwave, gaze unmoving. “Why?”

Ugh. She wet her lips. “Because—because if you and Emiliano—”

He turned to face her. “See, no, you can’t do that. You can’t use me to dig into his past.”

“That’s not—” She started to protest. Except, yeah, that definitely was what she was doing. “Okay, fine. But what if I want to know more about _you?_ ”

It wasn’t a lie. Matt was her friend.

But he shook his head, a little sadly. “It’s not only my story anymore. We both lived it. Differently, yeah, but still. You should ask him.”

“D’you…d’you think he’d answer?”

Matt cocked his head at her. “Honestly? I don’t know. But, uh…Karen tried that, once. In the inverse. Asked him all these questions just so she could understand me better. And…” He ran his hand through his hair. “I mean, I get it. I’m not the…the easiest person to, you know…” He shook his head. “But it was bad, Claire. You can’t just do that to someone.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He surprised her by rolling his eyes, although she realized a second later that it was more likely at himself than at her. “You wouldn’t care about any of this if you didn’t care about him, right? Just…find a different way to show it.”

“Will do,” she promised, still chagrinned.

“Speaking of which.” Now a small, sly smile appeared on his face. “Foggy and I are taking him out tomorrow to buy normal clothes.”

She gaped at him. “ _What?_ ”

“He looks like he walked out of a guerilla war zone, or so I’m told. And I understand that’s something women care about—”

She smacked his arm. “Matt! That’s so superficial.”

He made a show of rubbing the spot. “Ow.”

“Shut up.”

“No, really.” His eyes turned sincere. “Even if you don’t care what he looks like, which I don’t buy, I think it’ll help him. To, you know…feel normal.”

Claire didn’t like the sound of that, either. “He doesn’t have to be normal.”

Matt paused. “You and I might have different definitions of normal.”

She was one hundred percent certain of that. Still, she took a second to study his face. “You really think this is a good idea?”

“I’m not trying to hurt him, Claire.”

Maybe not intentionally, but forcing him into a mold or making him feel like he had to meet too many expectations…she sighed. “Be careful with him, all right?”

“Always am,” he replied lightly, standing up and pulling on his mask.

Watching him duck back out into the night, she was left thinking about those two words. Matt _hadn’t_ always been careful with Emiliano—they’d gone enough rounds trying to tear each other to shreds. But she supposed Matt was looking forward, not back.

Which was good, wasn’t it? Except…some things from the past had a way of tangling up around you, and they just gripped tighter when you ignored them.

Sometimes you couldn’t move forward without first looking back.

~

Emiliano

He kept focusing on how soft the bed was. In fact, he couldn’t actually sleep on it. He’d tried for the last two nights since coming here, and each time ended up grabbing blankets so he could settle down on the floor. But he remade the bed first thing in the morning. It was too luxurious a bed to not be kept presentable.

Oddly, he found it easier to lie on the bed when he wasn’t actively trying to sleep. Right now, for instance, he was stretched out on it at about six in the morning, listening idly to the Valliers’ hushed voices in the kitchen.

(Did they know he could hear them?)

“I still feel bad about the spaghetti thing,” Maeva was whispering.

Micah was busy with the coffee maker, from the sound of it. “It’s not your fault. How could we have known he’d be a food snob?”

Emiliano felt slightly offended. Preferring high-quality ingredients didn’t make him a _snob_. He’d probably eaten more insects than Micah had seen in his entire domestic life.

“Well, if he has senses like Matt’s…” Maeva began.

“I thought Matt’s senses were from his accident.”

“Or if he has special training, whatever. It makes sense he’d be picky about food. Now that he _finally has the freedom to be,_ ” she added, voice laden with meaning that Emiliano did not understand.

Emiliano rolled his eyes in the privacy of the room. He’d never exactly been lacking for freedom. When was the last time Micah or Maeva traveled to three different countries in as many days? When was the last time either of them ran across rooftops? When was the last time they weren’t bound by the needs of family and friends?

Well. In fairness, Emiliano had been fairly constrained by Matty’s life, like a moon in the orbit of a planet. But that was only one person.

Unless he counted Ella. So…two people, perhaps.

Maybe Claire.

But that was _all_.

“We should plant a garden,” Maeva announced suddenly.

“Excuse me?” Micah spluttered. “How long do you think he’s going to be here?”

Emiliano took a second to convince himself that he did not care about the answer.

“I…I don’t know,” Maeva mumbled at last. “But still. It’d be good for Ella. A chance to be outside, in the fresh air and the dirt and the sunshine. And she can learn more about food prep and wastefulness and the _science_ of it all…”

Micah laughed. “All right, I won’t argue with you on this one. If you want to teach Ella how to garden, that sounds good.”

“Good,” Maeva said firmly. Her tone took on a playful edge. “We should put it out under that treehouse you keep saying you’re going to finish for her.”

“ _You_ could finish it,” Micah retorted indignantly.

She dropped her voice to mimic his. “ _I have to make the treehouse, Maeva, I’m her father, this is my fatherly responsibili—_ ” She broke off with a yelp; there was the sound of skin on skin, as if Micah had caught her wrist. Then she hummed appreciatively and…Emiliano was almost entirely certain that they were kissing each other.

He pulled his pillow over his head.

Fortunately, the couple was interrupted by their daughter’s footsteps thundering down the stairs. “Mom! Dad! Can I— _ew_ , cut it out!”

They laughed as they broke apart, and Emiliano listened in as the family teased each other about bed hair and Ella’s mismatched socks and whatever they’d dreamed about the night before. After only a minute or two, however, Micah apparently pulled Ella aside.

“Buttercup, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Sure,” she said easily, and her lighter footsteps followed him into the living room.

Emiliano braced himself for another round of warnings against him. Surely Ella had heard nothing but instructions for how to stay safe as long as Emiliano was in their home. They shouldn’t have let him stay if they considered him such a gamble.

Micah took a deep breath. “Ella, I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

What?

“What?” Ella asked.

“The other day, in the kitchen. I know I scared you.”

Emiliano had no idea what incident Micah was referencing, but Ella held her breath as if she understood.

“I was still processing some of the things I’d heard, and I was…I was angry at Emiliano, yeah—”

Ah. Of course.

“—but I was also angry at myself. Because I hadn’t been there to protect you.”

“You didn’t even _know_ me,” she pointed out.

Micah didn’t answer that, as if it made no difference. “The point is, you shouldn’t have had to see me like that. I want you to trust me, and I know it’s hard to trust someone who…”

“Who breaks plates?” she offered helpfully.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I trust Matt, though,” she pointed out. “And he breaks worse than plates.”

Emiliano cracked a smile.

“Matt isn’t your father,” Micah countered.

And that. Emiliano stopped smiling. That made all the difference.

“Anyway.” Micah cleared his throat. “Can you forgive me?”

“Daddy, of _course._ ” Fabric brushed against fabric as she flung herself into his arms.

“I’m so proud of you,” Micah was murmuring. “You know that, right? I’m so proud of how you…just…you wanna help the whole world. But the thing is, you’re _my_ whole world.”

At that, Emiliano could not decide whether he wanted to keep listening or cast his senses as far away from Micah’s voice as possible.

“I just wanna make sure you’re safe and loved.” There was a soft sound; Micah kissing her cheek or her forehead. “Does that make sense?”

“You know,” she said sweetly, “you don’t have to worry about me.”

Micah laughed roughly. “Maybe I’ll believe that in forty years.”

“ _Forty_ ,” she gasped, horrified.

“Fifty, actually.”

“Dad!”

Her protests were in vain; Micah teased her relentlessly. At some point, the situation seemed to escalate into tickling. Emiliano was so preoccupied listening that he didn’t realize Maeva was in the hallway outside his room until she was tapping on the door, asking if he wanted breakfast.

Emiliano shook himself, telling himself to refocus. _On what_ , he wasn’t exactly sure. But the Valliers hadn’t invited him here so he could spy on their family and do nothing; he was here because he needed a place to stay that didn’t involve intimidation or coercion.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, thank you,” he said, in answer to Maeva’s question, but he was already thinking about what his next step should be.

He’d had two days of rest here. That was more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe, everyone! Don't forget to drink water! And find me on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ceterisparibus116 if you want another person to talk to during social isolation or whatever you're going through. <3


	7. Too Many Parts to Tape Back Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "New Fire" by Sent by Ravens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP74OjrFRRo).

Foggy

He still couldn’t believe Emiliano was dating Claire. _Claire_ , who’d turned _Matt_ down for being too full of drama and Catholic angst. In fairness, Emiliano wasn’t Catholic as far as Foggy was aware. But he managed to be plenty angsty anyway.

Foggy also wasn’t sure why his presence was needed on this ninja shopping trip.

Okay, that was a lie—he was totally sure. First, because the whole point of the shopping trip was to make one of the ninjas less ninja-y, and Foggy was something of an expert on that by virtue of being the only person in the group who wasn’t also a ninja. Second, because while Matt with his Mattness managed to make everything he wore look good (even including his dumb oversized sweaters he’d brought with him from the orphanage or whatever), that didn’t change the fact that he was also still totally blind.

Marci dropped Foggy off outside of an H&M with a smirk; Foggy could already see Matt and Emiliano waiting outside the store’s automatic doors. Matt had brought his cane, which Foggy found interesting since he’d been using it less and less recently, and was leaning easily on it with both hands wrapped around the top. Emiliano looked the way Matt always did whenever Foggy managed to drag Matt to a health clinic back in law school—like he _knew_ he needed to be there, but really didn’t want to be.

Well, there was nothing for it. Foggy shuffled over to join them. “Um, hey, guys.”

“Hey,” Matt said easily.

Emiliano just nodded once.

“Let’s get to it?” Foggy asked. He’d _meant_ to sound more assertive, but he was so far out of his comfort zone that he knew he hadn’t pulled it off. The only thing that helped was that Emiliano looked equally far out of _his_ comfort zone.

Matt, on the other hand, simply looked annoyingly smug about the whole situation. “Follow me,” he said, leading the way into the store, reaching out one hand (without looking) to grab a shopping cart as he went. He definitely didn’t know where he was going, but between the cane and the speed at which he was pushing the cart, people cleared right out of the way. So there was that.

Foggy walked beside Emiliano, humming along to the annoying pop song blaring from the overhead speakers but leaving about a foot between himself and the other man. Not because he actually expected Emiliano to suddenly throw a knife at him or something. But it was like Foggy had some instinct about unstable ninjas. He’d picked up on Elektra, after all. Yeah, he’d missed Matt by a mile, but Matt was the obvious exception. If there was a single person in the whole world who would’ve successfully pegged adorably-shy-and-awkwardly-Catholic-wounded-handsome-duck Matt Murdock as a violent vigilante, Foggy would like to meet them.

When they reached men’s clothing, though, Foggy took the lead. This was _his_ area. He plunged into the rows with confidence. It was important to give off confidence: clothes could smell fear, and if you betrayed any nervousness, they’d start tricking you with weird sizes and colors that looked good only until you brought them home.

“Aha,” Foggy announced after only a few seconds. He’d spotted some rows of shirts that were a nice, mossy color. He plucked one from the rack and held it out. “Here, this’ll bring out your eyes.”

Matt snorted loudly.

“What?” Foggy asked. “It’s basically hazel.”

Emiliano looked doubtful.

A bit miffed that they’d brought him along even though they obviously weren’t interested in his expertise, Foggy gave the shirt a little shake, like Emiliano was a dog and the shirt was an enticing toy. “Just try it, would you?”

With a sigh, Emiliano slipped it on over the shirt he was already wearing—which, _what_ , did the man not know how to try on clothes—and rolled his shoulders once. He shook his head. “Not this one.”

“What’s wrong?” Foggy asked, slightly indignant. “It looks great.” It did. It looked more expensive than it was, and it really did highlight his eyes, managing to coax some warmth out of the dominant grays and pale greens of Emiliano’s irises.

But Emiliano showed no appreciation for such details. “The fabric isn’t flexible enough,” he said. “I’d be too impeded in a fight.”

Why—why was he planning on fighting in such a nice shirt? And Foggy noticed a few of the other customers shooting them weird looks at his words. Great.

Why had Matt thought this was a good idea, again?

Still, Foggy had to keep trying. For Matt and Claire, who were both way too invested in this little misadventure working out. So, Foggy rallied himself and dutifully started hunting for another shirt with…more room for throwing elbows, or whatever.

“This one?” Matt asked quietly.

Foggy rolled his eyes as hard as he could. It was the color of blood. “Do you just sniff out red, or what?”

Emiliano took the shirt and pulled it on. He rolled his shoulders, then swung his arm once in a sort of slashing motion. Foggy glanced over his shoulder to see that the other customers had all retreated into the next row. But Emiliano looked pleased.

“It’ll hide the blood too,” Matt said, sounding all _genuine_ and _earnest_. Like that was a normal thing to think. Or say out loud in the middle of a department store.

Foggy remembered the horned costume. Guess that kind of thing really was normal, for him. Foggy couldn’t even hate the old costume anymore, ’cause at least it had kept Matt safe.

“You’re getting it,” Matt decided, dropping the shirt in the shopping cart. He plunged deeper into the aisles, face set with playful determination. Emiliano trailed after him like a duckling following its mother.

But it…it wasn’t _that_ weird.

~

Emiliano

He could now confidently say that he hated shopping. The sounds, the people, the harsh lights, the endless trying on of new clothes. He clung to the memory of the look on Matty’s face, pride and excitement. And the new clothes felt…nice enough, he supposed. He wondered if Claire would actually appreciate them. He suspected that she would see right through them. New clothes could not change who he was or what he’d done.

He couldn’t see her yet, though, because Karen had conscripted him to help her with her side of Dex’s case: anther unfamiliarity, since he wasn’t sure what to expect when he arrived at apartment 6A. He used to enjoy reading, true, but this wasn’t simply reading. This was research. Into a real person, no less. Apparently, the Murdocks were convinced he would be helpful.

He knocked, and had to wait almost a minute until Karen opened the door. The first thing Emiliano saw were giant blue eyes framed by dark lashes staring up at him: not Karen’s, but the baby’s, who was in her arms and looked rather like Karen herself in miniature.

The baby. He’d nearly forgotten about her and now he felt even more unprepared. He hadn’t been around infants in over twenty years.

Karen was wearing one of Matty’s gray hoodies, which was clear from the size of it (as well as from a small stain that was, well, not ketchup), and was slightly out of breath. “Hey! Sorry, I almost tripped over the diaper bag. Come in?”

“Um,” Emiliano said.

She apparently accepted that as agreement because she started back down the hall. “Sorry the place is a mess,” she called over her shoulder.

The entryway wasn’t bad, but the rest of the visible apartment was…cluttered, to put it mildly, at least compared to how spotless Matty preferred to keep it and how spotless it had been since the last time Emiliano visited. Laundry in a basket, dishes in the kitchen, the aforementioned diaper bag by the door to the bedroom, and, in the back corner, a brightly-colored contraption that must have been in the bedroom the last time Emiliano was here: a swing for infants.

Karen noticed him looking at it. “Unless she’s napping, she hates not being in the same room as us. And she gets bored if she’s not moving. Takes after her dad.”

“…Ah,” Emiliano said, at a loss for anything else to say.

Fortunately, Karen didn’t seem to need a partner to her conversation. “Anyway, I keep trying to clean stuff, but that’s just not a priority right now, you know? But then I feel bad ’cause I don’t even want to think about how bad this place must smell to Matt. He says it’s fine, but…” She gestured, the motion both fond and amused, as if to say, _you know how he is_. “Anyway, I would’ve cleaned for you, but I kept telling myself I’d get up in like five more minutes, and then I found this article about Dex that pissed me off, so I had to call the _Bulletin_ and yell at the journalist who wrote it for a bit—”

“They let you?” Emiliano asked, bemused.

“I used to work there,” she said shortly. “They know I only say something if there’s a problem. Anyway, so, I didn’t get around to cleaning. Is it…” She cringed slightly. “Is it awful in here, for you?”

Well, it didn’t smell pleasant, but it smelled lived in. “I like it,” he admitted, quite unintentionally.

Karen’s eyes positively _glinted_ at that revelation.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

She shrugged, affecting an innocence that he didn’t believe for an instant. Then, suddenly, she held out her daughter. “Hold her for a second? I need to grab something.”

And before he knew what he was doing, he was taking the baby and cradling her. His arms remembered the motion even if his head didn’t. He’d been too young to spend much time holding Gio when Gio was a baby, but he’d had baby cousins, once. He used to watch them.

Her warm weight settled against him, and she made a gurgling noise that sounded incredibly at peace. Of course, she had no idea of the blood that had been spilled by the hands now holding her.

“ _Salve, Gianetta, piccola mia_ ,” he murmured.

“What did you just call her?”

Emiliano lifted his head to see that Karen had reappeared and was watching him, a knowing curve to her lips. He quickly held out the baby so Karen could take her back.

Karen did so, and casually walked into the kitchen to get two tall mugs of coffee. “Nice shirt, by the way,” she tossed over her shoulder.

Emiliano scowled, trying to make sense of that, while she juggled drinks and the baby and returned to the living room floor. She set the mugs on the coffee table and dug papers out of a bag left on the couch. Settling Gracie in her lap with a pacifier, she spread all the papers on the floor, then looked up at Emiliano, eyes bright with determination. “Ready?”

Feeling a strange mix of awkward and intrigued, Emiliano lowered himself to the floor on the other side of the mess of papers and picked up the closest document. It was a heavily redacted file from Dex’s time in the military. “What are we looking for?”

Sitting back, she tucked her hair behind her ears. “It’s like working a story. Legal cases aren’t just about the facts—it’s about having a narrative. So we need to figure out the best narrative for Dex. It’s gotta make him look as good as possible and hold up against whatever the prosecution throws at us.”

He sipped his coffee and instantly regretted his decision. It was perhaps the worst coffee he’d ever tasted, and he’d tasted some truly awful concoctions, but he was forced to swallow it down without making a face so as not to offend Karen. “You sound like a politician, crafting a winning story out of Dex’s life.”

“it’s about knowing your audience,” she returned, unphased. “Reporters have to educate and inform people with an average reading level of below basic proficiency. Politicians have to persuade those same people to vote for them, and lawyers have to persuade those same people to get their client off.” She shrugged. “We need facts, but no one will care unless we also give them a story. Or worse, they’ll make up their own story.”

“And what do you think Dex’s story is?”

Karen pursed her lips. “Matt and Foggy think we need to give him a diminished capacity defense, which would mean we need to build a story out of his psychological makeup. So…his childhood, any instance of trauma…”

Emiliano flipped through the military file. “Well, here’s your story.”

She snatched the file out of his hands. “Why, what happened?”

Emiliano shrugged. “He was a soldier.”

She looked up, blue eyes locking onto his. “And?”

“And what?”

“What’re you saying?”

“That…” He hesitated. He wasn’t sure what she was fishing for. And she was clearly fishing for something. “That he must have lived a completely different life than whatever he was used to. And he probably did things that he regretted.” He nodded at the folder. “You’ll see.”

Slowly, she closed the file. “You’d consider yourself a soldier, wouldn’t you?”

Oh. “That’s not—that was different.”

She eyed him and he couldn’t tell if her expression was thoughtful or skeptical.

He reached blindly for another paper and squinted. Some kind of incident report from an organization Dex had been volunteering with. Interesting. Dex had never exactly seemed like the sort to volunteer.

Karen cleared her throat. “So, um, did he tell you anything when he was staying with you?”

Emiliano shook his head. “We didn’t actually…talk very much. Here, look at this.” He passed her the report.

“I’ll trade you,” she said absently, handing him a different file.

Old school records. Probably unimportant, although Dex changed schools frequently. Was that normal in the United States? Or did it suggest that he’d already been causing trouble? He also noted a reference to a brother, and filed that away for further research.

“Emiliano,” Karen said suddenly, voice low and tight, pulling him from his thoughts. “Did you read this?”

“Not closely. It was just something that happened at a suicide hotline, wasn’t it?”

She thrust the report at him. “Did you read the transcript?”

Shaking his head, he quickly read about Dex urging a caller to turn his gun on his step-father. He glanced up to see Karen’s eyes glued to him, but he wasn’t sure what reaction she was expecting to see. “Well,” he said slowly, “we might be missing some context.”

Her laugh was short and sharp. “ _Context?_ ”

“This is only part of the story. Perhaps Dex knew this person, or—”

“Emiliano. He told him to kill someone.”

“Self-defense?” Emiliano suggested.

Karen snatched the papers back; the baby made a small noise of distress at the abrupt movement. “That’s not self-defense. That’s—that’s cold-blooded vicarious _murder_. Does he get off on it, or something? And what if the guy went through with it? We don’t even know! And how many other people has Dex encouraged to—to do something like this?”

“Karen. Calm down.”

“I’m _calm_ ,” she snapped. “I’m just…” She slumped down, pushing her hair out of her face. “I dunno, Emiliano. What if, by trying to help Dex, we’re just making things worse? What if he does something like that again, but this time it’s our fault?”

Emiliano pursed his lips. It wasn’t his decision, one way or the other. In the meantime, perhaps he and Karen should take a break. Before he could think twice, Emiliano stood up. “Hasn’t Matty taught you some self-defense?”

She frowned up at him. “Yeah.”

“Is he still training you?”

“Not since the baby. There’s just been too much going on.”

“I can teach you,” Emiliano offered.

Still on the floor, she stared up at him. “Wait, seriously? Now?”

“If you miss it. We’ve made plenty of progress.” And he himself was not opposed to doing something other than digging through Dex’s backstory where he couldn’t decide whether the similarities or dissimilarities between himself and Dex were more disturbing. He held out his hand for her. To his surprise, she slipped hers into his and let him pull her to her feet. “What has he taught you already?”

She strapped Gracie into her swing, then returned to stand in front of Emiliano, next to their mess of papers. She still looked slightly confused, but he could sense her heartrate speeding up with excitement. She must have missed this. “Um, mostly targets and stances so far.”

Emiliano backed lazily into the center of the apartment where there was more room. “Targets for which strikes?”

She followed him. Almost stalking him, really. “Mostly punches and kicks, so far.”

“Show me.”

Narrowing her eyes in concentration, Karen threw a few jabs and a cross in the air.

Emiliano’s eyes followed her motion, watching her form and her footwork. “Not bad. But would you like to learn something more advanced?”

“I’m not flipping around,” Karen warned.

His lips curved in a smirk. “I’m not talking about that. But punches and kicks are best utilized from a position of relative freedom, where you have the space required to use such ranged attacks. If you’re in a more vulnerable position, you’ll need to get more creative.”

“Vulnerable, huh?” Karen asked, sounding curious despite herself.

Emiliano held out his hand again. “May I?”

“Go for it. I trust you.”

This from the woman who’d once held him at gunpoint—because he’d broken into her home. Emiliano kept his concentration on the task at hand, sliding his fingers around her wrist and jerking her closer. He must have jerked her too forcefully, because she stumbled against him, her hand slamming into his chest.

Her eyes flashed. “Watch it.”

“Use your elbow next time, not your palm.”

“What?”

“If I pull you too close, use the moment I’ve given you, but use it wherever it’ll do real damage. Ut your elbow at my throat.”

Squaring her jaw, she brought her elbow up to set it against his Adam’s apple.

“Very nice,” he remarked. “At this close range, you’ll get more power if you swing from the side, not upwards—the same motion as a hook, not an uppercut.”

She tried again.

“Better. But Matty _has_ taught you how to throw a hook, hasn’t he? It’s not just your arm; rotate the rest of your body into it.”

She glared. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“You’re neglecting your lower body.”

She tried again—with more force this time; Emiliano had to elan back to avoid catching her strike in his throat.

He grinned. “Much better! Never forget the power of close-range joint strikes. Your knees are even more powerful, if you can keep your balance.”

He had her practice that next: using her knee to take out his legs, to aim at his groin, even to block him from bearing down on her. After only five minutes, she was able to consistently maintain her balance while keeping him at bay.

“Your balance is excellent,” Emiliano noted.

She smirked. “I used to play basketball.”

So she’d always been physically competitive. “Shall we try something more challenging, then?”

Slipping a thin band from her wrist, she pulled her hair back out of her face, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. “Let’s do it.”

“Perfect. If you find the right angle, and exert enough force, you’ll be able to break my arm.”

She fell back onto her heels. “Wait, what?”

“There are fewer more effective ways to incapacitate an assailant.”

“But…” She gave her head a quick shake. “I forget you guys do this all the time. Just run around breaking bones.”

“It’s necessary,” he reminded her.

“Not always.”

Unfortunately, she was correct. “Regardless, we are talking about your personal safety. Only you can decide what force is necessary to defend yourself.”

“I might—I might not be the best at that.”

Emiliano realized abruptly that he was swimming in dangerous waters now. “I would think you’d rather have other tools with which to defend yourself that are…less likely to…do more irreparable damage.”

She glanced away.

“I’d like to teach you,” he said softly. “But you can say n.”

Her eyes flitted back to search his face. Emiliano was not sure what she was trying to read there. Whatever it was, she must have found it, because she gave a small, single nod.

“All right, now feel this.” He held her wrist and twisted enough for the inside of her wrist to point upwards. Then he tapped the back of his hand lightly under her elbow. With downwards pressure at her wrist and upwards pressure at her elbow, he bent her arm slightly in the wrong direction.

She rose up on her toes. “Feel it. Definitely feel it.”

“That’s all you have to do. Simple. Now, you try.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You trust me?”

He highly doubted she’d be able to generate enough force to actually do any damage, not without more training. Certainly not quickly enough for him to be unable to stop her. So it wasn’t really a question of trust, was it? He nodded anyway.

She started running through the motions, practicing twisting his arm and chopping upwards under his elbow. Took her a few tries to get the angle right, but overall she was a fast learner. To make it more challenging, he had her practice getting his arm into position not when they were standing still but in response to him throwing a punch. She took eagerly to the challenge.

“You know,” Emiliano remarked as they practiced, “I’m actually surprised Matty hasn’t forced both you and his partner into weekly self-defense sessions, since he’s always so worried that you’ll get hurt.”

Karen focused on parrying his punch and bringing her hand down to hold his wrist without losing control of his arm. “I don’t think he wants to go there too often with us. He wants us to be able to defend ourselves, but he doesn’t wanna think about scenarios where we’d _have_ to. You know?”

Not…not really, no. Emiliano settled for a noncommittal tilt of his head.

“Besides…” She trust upwards with her other arm, finally marrying the correct angle with enough force to bring Emiliano up onto his toes to avoid the strain. “He definitely knows by now that I can take care of myself.”

The darkness in her voice made it clear what she was referring to. “Vanessa?” Emiliano asked gently as he dropped back down.

She swallowed. “Not…not just Vanessa.”

He wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but he sensed its importance. Instead of throwing another attack, he waited.

She clasped her hands together, an image not unlike Emiliano’s grandmother when she used to pray. Slowly, haltingly, Karen began talking about a man named Wesley who’d come to the law firm on Wilson Fisk’s orders. She talked about a reporter named Ben who took her under his wing. She talked about a kidnapping. She talked about a gun on a table. She talked about wanting a man to die.

She didn’t tell him that Ben died because of what she did. She didn’t have to.

As she finished, she wrapped her arms around herself. “I kept it a secret for a long time. Matt and Foggy are just so… _good_ , you know? They make mistakes, but they’re so…pure. They would never do something like that.”

Emiliano didn’t know Foggy well enough to agree or disagree, but he was quite certain that Karen was underestimating what Matty was capable of. But this didn’t seem like the time to argue.

“Anyway.” She rubbed at her arms, glancing over her shoulder towards the papers displaying Dex’s life in harsh black-and-white print. “It was hard, telling them. Telling them both. But in the end, it brought us closer.”

Emilano reminded himself that she wasn’t trying to give him advice. As far as he knew, she had no idea how little of Emilano’s past Claire knew. But Emiliano couldn’t help wondering how similar his past was to Karen’s.

It _wasn’t_ similar. That was the problem. Karen had been put in an impossible situation by her father; that much was clear to Emiliano. She hadn’t asked for all of that trouble. She hadn’t asked for her brother to be involved at all. She certainly hadn’t methodically sought out victims, trusting only the words of a wizened old man whom she should have known by then was deserving of no trust at all.

When Emiliano had asked Matt what to do about Claire and his past, Emiliano had tried to say that perhaps Claire would let his past remain in the past as a sign of confidence in him. Of trust. And perhaps that was still true.

But if Claire trusted in him, he ought to start earning it. And he ought to demonstrate that he indeed trusted her in return.

~

Dex

Surprise, surprise: solitary was lonely.

Especially because he heard about it, sometimes. When they let him out in the yard (level four, highest security), all by himself, or took him to the showers, all by himself. He still heard the guards muttering. Or he heard the other inmates muttering while the guards escorted him back to his cell. He heard about the gang activity. Gang life was flourishing in here. Better here than out on the streets, actually, thanks to Matt. (And Stone. And the Punisher, since news got out that he’d come back for a bit. Even the gangbangers in prison were freaked for about a week before they figured out the Punisher wasn’t trying to break in and kill them.) The gangs traded in paper and cigarettes, boxes of ramen and anything they could use to make ink for tattoos. They had rules. And mostly, they didn’t even fight each other. Nah, all the violence was from the leaders enforcing the rules down the ranks. Keeping everyone else in line. Keeping everyone out of trouble.

Dex kind of wished he could join one. Just one. For…the solidarity, you know?

Then again, after what he’d done, they probably wouldn’t let him. They probably wouldn’t want him.

Needless to say, visits with his lawyers were the highlights of his existence now. And yeah, he was painfully aware of how depressing that was. His fault, though, wasn’t it?

Another thing about solitary: it was _quiet_. So quiet that moving out into the visitation room was jarring to say the least. Ha, maybe this was how Matt felt all the time. One more thing they had in common.

Matt and Nelson were already seated at the table, with a notebook in front of Nelson, when the guard dropped Dex off, both in their cheap suits. Nelson’s tie looked like it was dotted with tiny puppies, though. Dex got distracted trying to count them and almost missed Matt’s greeting.

“Hi,” he said automatically.

“How’re you holding up in here?” Matt asked.

What a stupid question. Dex shrugged.

Matt dipped his head a little. “Fair enough. Today, we really just have two goals: cover your career in broad strokes, and get your consent as to your defense. Sound good?”

He couldn’t exactly say no. Dex nodded.

“Tell us about your experience as a sniper.”

Dex cleared his throat and adjusted the collar of his jumpsuit. It was too tight, always too tight. “Yeah. Okay. You want, like, my training and everything?”

Matt nodded. “As a start.”

“Right. After they recruited me, I started on basic training…”

He talked for what felt like hours. Nelson filled page after page of notes. They moved from the army to the FBI, then on to Fisk. It wasn’t too bad, really. Neither lawyer asked many questions, and whenever Dex risked a glance at their faces, their expressions seemed neutral.

But then they started circling back to more specifics. “Did you ever take a life as a sniper?” Matt asked.

Duh. “Yeah. That was the job.”

Matt folded his hands on the table. “Were there any killings that weren’t sanctioned?”

At least he got the difference between taking the shot under orders and taking the shot alone. Or did he? “When?” Dex asked.

Nelson looked tense. “Uh, as part of your military career.”

Dex exhaled through his nose. “I never fired a shot that wasn’t authorized. Does that answer your question?”

Matt didn’t acknowledge that at all, even though Nelson jotted a note. “What about with the FBI? Any unauthorized killings?”

Dex wet his lips. It felt like something was compressing his skull. “Uh, yeah. I was still, uh, with the FBI for the Bulletin attack. Technically. So.”

“And the motorcade attack?” Matt pressed.

Of course he’d lump it all together. Dex flexed his jaw. “I wasn’t acting on my own. My job was to protect Fisk. That’s what I did. We were under fire. So I took out the men threatening us.”

“Did you shoot anyone you didn’t have to?”

Dex saw too blurry silhouettes in his memory. Slumped on the ground. Incapacitated. He’d killed them anyway. He hesitated. “You could say that.”

Again, Matt didn’t react to that, even though Nelson’s forehead creased as he wrote another note. “Okay, Dex, that’s pretty good for now,” Matt said. Dex wasn’t sure if he was throwing him a bone, but he somehow doubted that they had _actually_ covered everything Matt thought they needed to. “Let’s talk about your defense, all right? It’s ultimately your choice what defense you raise, but as you know by now, we’re thinking the mental deficiency is your best shot. Just to be clear—are you on board with going in that direction, unless and until something changes?”

Dex _wasn’t_ insane, and just because it wasn’t literally called the insanity defense didn’t mean that wasn’t exactly what this was. Still, he nodded. “I’m on board,” he lied.

Matt’s eyebrows tightened over his glasses and his head cocked a little to the side.

Nelson didn’t seem to notice. “This means we’ll have to find you a forensic psychologist or psychiatrist. Matt’s already done some digging, and he’s got it narrowed down to what he thinks is the best option for you. If we set up an appointment, do you think you’ll be able to, y’know, tell your story?”

He didn’t want another shrink. He wanted Dr. Mercer. But she was gone, she’d left him—no, no, she was _dead_. She was gone. Dex looked between Nelson and his partner, at Nelson’s businesslike face and Matt’s concerned expression, and tried to swallow even though his mouth was dry. “Yeah,” he lied.

“Perfect.” Nelson made a note. “It’s also your choice whether you testify. Honestly, we’d rather that not happen, and we’re working on getting enough witnesses to testify for you that you won’t need to. But…we can’t guarantee that it won’t end up being necessary, just so the jury can get an idea of what it’s actually like for you.”

“What what’s like?” Dex blurted out, too fast and too loud.

Matt answered more slowly. “What it was like for you when you, ah, committed the crimes. What was going on in your head. Again, it’s your choice, but…it would help us plan your case if we knew at this point whether you think you’ll be okay with that or not.”

So they’d make him talk about it in court. About the newspaper office and the church and the hotel. About Fisk. About _Julie_ , maybe. And all those people would just be sitting there, judging him. And he’d probably say the wrong thing and ruin everything for Nelson and Matt. Dex pinched the skin on his left forearm. “I…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I, yeah, I’ll do it.”

Matt suddenly sat back in his chair. “Do we have a problem here, Dex?”

Icy fear shot through him. “What?”

“You understand that I can hear heartbeats, don’t you?”

Dex wished he could will his to calm down. “Yeah…yeah. I guess.”

“So you know I can tell that you’re lying.”

Dex shot a terrified look at Nelson before he could think it through, even though it wasn’t like Nelson would ever take _his_ side here. “I’m not—I’m not lying.”

“Dex.” Matt folded his hands on the table. “We’re not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. That would actually be unethical. So you don’t have to use this defense, you don’t have to testify.” He hesitated. “You don’t even have to see a psychologist, although I _really_ recommend it.”

Dex squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not lying.”

Silence.

He risked opening his eyes to see Nelson glancing doubtfully at Matt, who was as unreadable as ever. Dex would never play poker with him.

Finally, Matt sighed and rubbed at his jaw. “All right, look. We can keep all the options on the table for now, but we only have a week or two before we have to the prosecution notice that we’re using a mental deficiency defense, and if that’s the route we’re gonna go, we’ll need you to have met with a psychologist at least _once_ so we can sound like we have some idea of what we’re doing when we start negotiating a plea. So you’ll have some time to work through whatever issues you’ve got, but not a lot. Clear?”

Dex clenched his teeth at the impatience in Matt’s tone. Or was it straight up hostility? Dex couldn’t tell. “Don’t worry. I’ll see however many shrinks you want and you can tell the state you think I’m crazy.”

Matt’s head canted sharply to the side, like he wasn’t even _trying_ to make the gesture look like something a normal human would do.

“I said I’ll do it,” Dex snapped. “Am I lying now?”

He _wasn’t_. His guts were shriveling up at the thought of what he was gonna have to do to have even a _shot_ at freedom, and he couldn’t help thinking that maybe a lawyer with more experience or less ethics would have a better idea, and he thought maybe that getting taken out by gangs or guards in the prison would be better than this.

But he wasn’t lying.


	8. Play Target Practice with People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Glass Houses" by The Classic Crime (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncN0SMIg0gM) which is just an amaaazing song and if any of you happen to listen to it, I'd love your thoughts!

Dex

“On your feet, convict,” they said.

It wasn’t the normal time for rec, but Dex wasn’t about to argue with the guards. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he noted that they were wearing something protective under their usual uniforms. New policy, maybe? Whatever, it didn’t affect Dex.

They did the usual strip-search. Dex couldn’t think of a way to pretend that wasn’t humiliating, pretend that wasn’t another part of his punishment, so he sent his mind away. To the hotline center with Julie, watching her head bob between cubicles, imagining she’d stop and hang out in his. To a café, imagining that she’d actually let him pay for her coffee.

They shackled him again. Dex pretended they were bracelets.

They led him down the hallways. They weren’t supposed to talk to Dex and he wasn’t allowed to talk to them, but he had a conversation with them in his head.

 _I’m not gonna be in here much longer,_ he said.

 _You so sure?_ they snarked.

_No doubt about it. Nelson and Murdock are my lawyers._

Then they let him out into the yard. He pretended it was a park. A dog park, maybe. That’d explain the walls. Didn’t explain the barbed wire, though. Dex tried to ignore that part. He only got an hour here, so he’d better make the most of it.

He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck. Grabbed his ankles one after the other to stretch out his hamstrings. Then he shot the guards a glance and, when they didn’t make any kind of signal, started running. On a good day, he could get in about thirty-five laps before time ran out and they dragged him into a tiny shower stall.

Today, he only got ten laps in before he turned back towards the main door and saw that the two guards had been joined by a third, and there was a cluster of other prisoners (five) behind them: all in orange jumpsuits, all looking _very_ excited.

A shiver ran up Dex’s spine. He kept running. If some admin guy got the times mixed up or forgot Dex was supposed to be in solitary, that wasn’t Dex’s problem. In fact, company sounded nice.

Except for the little fact that the prison hadn’t been exactly friendly to him. Hadn’t gone out of its way to protect him. Sure, setting up an _ambush_ was a little extreme, maybe Dex was being paranoid, but…but he found himself scanning the yard for any weapons he could use anyway.

There was nothing. Obviously. It was a _prison_ yard.

The guards had guns, though. Guns, and batons, and tasers, and radios. A stockpile of weapons attached to each human.

Dex kept running. He tried not to swivel his head, no point in showcasing his suspicions. But he kept watch out of the corner of his eye (his peripheral vision was _great_ ). The prisoners had slunk out in front of the guards. One of them cracked his knuckles cartoonishly. Maybe Dex wasn’t so paranoid.

He eyed the potential hostiles up and down, looking for weaknesses. One hostile, the one covered in so many tattoos that Dex could barely see any normal skin, had dreadlocks. Nice, those would be easy to grab. Another had a broken nose. Not recently broken—his pale skin wasn’t discolored or swollen or anything. And Dex couldn’t tell if the broken nose meant the guy was experienced at brawling or just meant that the guy didn’t know how to guard his face. The other three looked normal.

Wait. Dex took another lap, and when his loop brought him closer, he slowed down, pretending to be running out of breath. Two benefits: first, hoping they’d underestimate his stamina. Second, hoping he’d a better look. This time, he tried to notice the things Stone might notice.

Yeah—one of those guys kept glancing at Tattoos and shifting his weight. He had less tattoos than the others, too. If Dex had to guess, they’d brought this skittish guy along as a chance for him to prove himself. To get into the gang, maybe? But Skittish wasn’t so sure of himself, didn’t know what he was doing.

Dex slowed his jog to a near walk, pretending to gasp for oxygen. Maybe he should target Skittish first? Then again, if he took out Tattoos, Skittish was almost guaranteed to turn tail. If Dex were at range, he’d definitely go for Tattoos first. But hand-to-hand, he didn’t like his odds so much. Tattoos couldn’t have gotten so high in the ranks without some skill to earn his place.

No, stop overthinking. Take out the leader, and the others would run. Take out the leader first, before he got too tired or hurt, before they all could gang up on him and corner him. Take out the leader.

This was, maybe, gonna be fun.

Dex was as ready as he was gonna get. Time to bait them in. Slowing all the way to a stop, careful not to stray too far from the guards whose weapons he’d be needing, Dex bent over and rested his elbows on his knees. He inflated his lungs. Deep breaths, in and out. Didn’t get his heartrate down at all, though. He could practically feel the adrenaline lighting up his system.

And when he glanced up, he saw the other prisoners moving in. Tattoos was front and center. Perfect.

Then the fourth guy, nondescript, suddenly broke rank. He sprinted forward, reckless, and Dex threw his original plan out the window. He punched Nondescript straight in the face. Cartilage bent and popped under his fist. The guy reared back, cursing, and everyone else swarmed in, but Dex was committed at this point. He pursued, raining more blows against Nondescript’s face. Hands grabbed at him from behind and he took the time to throw and elbow or two, enough to shake them off, but he kept chasing Nondescript. Eventually, finally, Nondescript tripped. Slammed onto the grass flat on his back. Dex threw a kick at his ribs.

And caught a blow to the side of his own head. Fair, that was just what he got for targeting one guy like that. Dex blinked the stars out of his vision, pulling his hands up to guard his chin. It was Tattoos, circling him, sneering at him. Didn’t seem too worried about his companion moaning on the ground.

Huh. If Dex was gonna join a gang, he definitely didn’t wanna join this one.

They wouldn’t want him either.

Tattoos lunged, going in low, like he was trying to Judo-wrestle Dex to the grass. Ha. Dex hopped nimbly out of the way and flung himself at Tattoos from behind. They both went down hard, but Dex was on top. He got two good hits in before the other three still standing yanked him off. Dex lashed out blindly and oh, happy day, he hit Skittish right on the mouth. Skittish stumbled backwards, spitting blood like one little love tap to the face was more than he’d signed up for. He was just _begging_ for special attention, which Dex supplied in the form of a swinging hook to the side of his jaw. There was a sickening _crunch-pop_ sound. Broken or dislocated, Dex didn’t care. Skittish probably wasn’t worrying about the specifics either, too busy flattening himself to the ground.

That was the moment when Dex felt something slice into his back. He rolled forward, away from the weapon, and sprung to his feet to see Broken Nose brandishing a shank. Dex was gonna go ahead and assume he had some experience with fighting, then, if Tattoos let him keep the weapon. Mostly, though, Dex was just delighted. His eyes locked onto the blade, glinting with his blood.

Tattoos was getting up, though. Getting his breath back. Dex didn’t have much time to savor the moment. He let out a deranged roar as he ran straight towards Broken Nose who, for all his experience, was maybe a bit unnerved by a mass murderer charging him while screaming his head off. His footsteps faltered, his stance slightly off-balance, and Dex slid at his legs like he was sliding into home base. Broken Nose collapsed on top of him and it took Dex about three seconds to wrestle the shank away from him. He got up, got a few stumbling steps away from his enemies, and grinned at them, twirling the shank between his fingers.

It was at this point that the guards seemed to realize that maybe their perfect ambush wasn’t so perfect. They hustled over, each with a hand on their utility belts.

Dex was hungry for those utility belts. He cocked back the hand holding the shank; his own blood dripped down onto his shoulder.

The guards slowed. The gangbangers froze.

“C’mon!” Dex shouted. “Who wants some?”

For a second, he thought no one did. They all just stood there, glancing nervously at each other. Dex felt his grin fall in disappointment.

Then the guards decided to man up. They drew their tasers. Dex threw the shank at the closest one, not at his heart, not at his vest, but at his face. Blood streamed over his skin as he screamed and the second guard fired his taser but the prongs missed Dex, who was running straight for Tattoos. Tattoos hadn’t learned his lesson.

He drove his fist into Tattoos’ gut.

_For Stone._

A fist to Tattoos’ face, breaking his cheekbone.

_For Madam Gao._

A hailstorm of strikes, turning Tattoos into a bloody mound of flesh.

_For Julie and Dr. Mercer and Coach Bradley._

Taser prongs bit into Dex’s neck from behind. His body seized up and the world went black.

~

Matt

He and Karen had been having such a nice morning. Frank had finally seemed to realize that the new human-smelling blob that demanded protection was sentient, and she’d devoted herself for at least twenty minutes to nosing various toys towards Gracie, probably hoping for a playmate. Gracie seemed excited about the idea of the game, but couldn’t grasp the particulars. Frank was clearly disappointed but trying not to show it. Karen, meanwhile, was trying not to laugh and Matt was giving himself rare permission to get lost in the moment.

Well, until his phone started chanting Foggy’s name. He picked it up, learned that Dex had been in a fight, and dashed to the prison (a little too literally; he definitely ripped one or two of Claire’s stitches and had to hope his jacket covered the seeping blood) to meet with Foggy face-to-face so they could review the security footage on-site. Otherwise, they’d have to wait on the prison to send a copy to their office (a wait that would probably be at least a week; they didn’t have time for that).

Matt tried not to notice the similarities between now and when, not so long ago, he’d sat in a similar room with a tiny computer in front of them, listening to Foggy watching the footage of the time he’d escaped Fisk’s prison ambush.

“What’s the point of solitary if they’re still gonna let Dex beat people up,” Foggy was grumbling, voice echoing a little off all the metal in the tiny room they were using.

A fair question, but pretty far down on the list of questions Matt needed answers for. “Is the video up? Play it.”

“Working on it, buddy.” Foggy fiddled with the (ancient) TV someone had wheeled into their room. “This thing is from, like, the nineties. Okay. We’re a go.” He took a deep breath and fell into his narrating voice, the one he brought out whenever he thought Matt just _needed_ to know what was going on in a TV show or YouTube video or something. “Okay, so Dex comes out with some guards. Yard’s empty. It looks…nice, ish.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “A prison yard.”

“I mean, it’s got actual grass, so, y’know. Anyway. Dex. He’s…he’s just running for now, dude. Like, really fast, though.”

“He likes to run,” Matt commented.

“Okay, and…and now we’ve got company. Lotsa unfriendlies. Prisoners in orange, all behind the guards. Not doing anything. Just waiting. Like, for an order. Dex is slowing down. Keeping an eye on them, but being all subtle about it.” There was a note of admiration in Foggy’s voice, barely discernable but there. “He’s acting like he’s worn out, but I’m not buying it. Although, that’s probably just ’cause I know what happens next.”

“How does the fight start?”

“They charge him. They—wow, they _really_ charge him. All five of ’em, all at once. One guy kinda breaks ahead of the others, and Dex just… _yikes_.” Foggy’s voice went up almost half an octave, a verbal wince. “It’s like he punched that guy’s skull in. Blood everywhere. I mean…huh, Dex really goes for bigger hits, y’know?”

Matt blinked. “…No?”

“I mean, not like you, you’re all fast precision, but Dex is like…” Foggy sucked in a breath. “He’s like a human battering ram. Does that make sense? That doesn’t make sense. He’s chasing that first guy, though, and fending off everyone trying to pull him away from him. But it’s like he’s going for the KO, I dunno.”

“Foggy,” Matt said crisply. “Tell me what damage he’s doing. Specifics.”

“Just, uh, lots of brute force I guess. Like, I feel like this is the point where you’d be breaking limbs or something, but he just keeps hitting people right in the face. It’s, uh…it’s pretty brutal.”

Taking out limbs was more likely to end a fight faster, true. Matt would never admit this aloud, but sometimes, on bad nights, he chose to drag the fights out. Those were the nights where he _didn’t_ go for the wrists, the elbows, the knees. Those were the nights where he pummeled his enemies’ heads and torsos until they passed out and Matt’s knuckles dripped with blood.

But maybe Dex didn’t know how to fight more efficiently. Maybe he wasn’t stretching this fight out. Maybe he was scared and desperate.

Through the tiny screen, Matt couldn’t hear his heartbeat. It was infuriating.

“Okay, and he just took out the ringleader with some kinda wrestling move. Didn’t know he wrestled. There’re just three left standing, and they’re swarming him, but—wait—no, he’s going after one of them. Broke his jaw, it looks like. Everyone else looks kinda freaked out.”

(Matt was surprised that _Foggy_ didn’t sound freaked out. Instead, that note of admiration was firmly in place.)

“Oh, shit,” Foggy breathed. “One of them’s got a—wait, no, not anymore.”

“Got a what?” Matt interjected, annoyed. Not at Foggy. At stupid TV screens.

“Shank. Dex took it, though, and, okay, _now_ the guards are incoming. They look _pissed_. They’re—oh, man.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Dex just, uh…” Foggy swallowed. “Got one of them with the shank. In the face. It’s, uh…I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s pretty gross.”

“Is he dead?” Matt demanded.

“Doesn’t look like it. Dex is going for one of the other prisoners, now, I dunno which, I can’t keep track. It’s seriously like watching my mom punch bread dough.”

“He—what?” Matt cocked his head at the unexpected referent.

“You know, like…” Foggy mimed punching the air. “It’s intense, that’s all. And, oh, they finally tased him. He’s on the ground. Passed out, I think. And the one guard who doesn’t have a bloody Niagara Falls from his face is on his radio. Getting help, I guess.” A pause. “Yep, we’ve got medical showing up, getting everyone out of there. Dex included. And…” Another pause. “Cut to black. That’s all the footage we’ve got, buddy.”

Matt immediately pushed up from the table to start pacing. “And Dex is okay now?”

“Back in his cell,” Foggy reported, “if we can trust the warden. Which I think we can. Not with—not with everything, obviously, but he can’t afford to push it any more than we can. This footage makes Dex look like a maniac, but it _also_ shows our beloved prison system in all its corrupt, wild west glory.”

Matt nodded grimly. The footage itself was bad for both sides, albeit for different reasons. If the prison disappeared Dex now, though, the evidence of Dex’s violence unleashed would be nothing compared to the legal war Matt and Foggy could rage.

But the question remained: if they were trying to kill Dex, why turn over this footage at all? And why go through all the trouble to set up a fight that Dex had the possibility of surviving? They should have stabbed him in some dark hallway and misplaced any footage.

Unless it wasn’t about Dex. Unless that whole scene was a message for someone else. Namely, Dex’s lawyers.

“Ugh,” Foggy muttered, dragging his hands over his face. “That was awful.”

Matt clenched his jaw and paced faster. “No kidding. The amount of coordination it must’ve taken to set up that ambush—”

“No,” Foggy interrupted. “I mean, yeah, that. But…you didn’t see Dex’s _face_. Matt, he was like…”

“Like what?”

Foggy shrugged helplessly. “Happy. He looked like he was at Disneyland.”

Matt’s feet stuttered to a halt. “He was fighting for his life.”

“I know, I’m just saying…” Foggy dragged his hands over his face and didn’t finish his sentence.

Matt narrowed his eyes. The fact that Dex wasn’t exactly averse to violence shouldn’t be news to anyone at this point.

They needed to refocus. The situation was bad, yeah. But not as bad as Matt had expected. Technically, McDuffie could add a few more assault charges to Dex’s laundry list of offenses, but she had to know they’d be a losing argument. Dex’s actions in prison were clearly self-defense, at least in Matt’s opinion. And even if McDuffie thought some members of the jury could be persuaded otherwise, she wouldn’t want to muddle up her theory against Dex by adding weaker charges in with the rest.

More importantly, she wouldn’t want to broadcast how corrupt and broken New York’s correctional system was.

But that didn’t mean the fight would have no effect on Dex’s case going forward.

Matt cleared his throat. “We have to get him out of here before something like this happens again.” If he was lucky, it would only ruin his case. More likely was that the next ambush wouldn’t fail.

“I know, we—wait, what?” Foggy started pacing. “ _Out?_ Like, on bail?”

Matt set his hands on his hips. “He can’t stay here.”

“Yeah, I know, it just…” Foggy tilted his head back like he was staring up at the ceiling. Or praying for guidance. “Remember back when we started Nelson and Murdock? At the very beginning? And you were all upset because I was okay with taking on guilty clients?”

“I wasn’t _upset_ ,” Matt protested.

“I didn’t know about your lie-detector-thing,” Foggy went on, ignoring that, “so obviously I had no idea how you could be so committed to only taking innocent clients. But even if I _had_ known, it’s like…innocent until proven guilty is still there for a reason, and I believed that. _You_ were the one making me feel morally bankrupt for being willing to take on some sketchier clients.”

“…What’s your point, here?”

“My _point_ is that it’s ridiculously unfair that you’re now making me feel morally bankrupt for not leaping at the chance to get a mass murderer back on the streets!”

“That’s not…” Matt drummed his fingers against his belt. “That’s not what I’m saying. And I don’t think I have the moral high ground here, Foggy. I really don’t.”

“Then why are you fighting so hard for him?” Foggy suddenly lowered his voice. “Look, buddy, I know he wore your suit, but he’s not _you_.”

Matt jerked his head back. “I never said he was.”

“Okay, but I just mean…Hell’s Kitchen acquitted you. They believe in you. You don’t have to prove anything, like, vicariously through Dex.”

“I’m not…” Matt trailed off. _Was_ he doing that? He fell back into safer territory. “This isn’t about me, Foggy. Dex needs help. It’s that simple.”

Foggy hesitated. “If you say so.”

~

Emiliano

Emiliano was used to guilt; it had been a near-constant companion ever since Gio’s death, except for brief reprieves where the mission took all of Emiliano’s focus. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, that living with the Valliers—the furthest thing from a mission that he could imagine—would welcome back the guilt with all its potency. But somehow, Emiliano had failed to anticipate this.

And he had certainly failed to anticipate that guilt would broaden its scope. But after a phone call from Matty explained that someone had ordered a hit on Dex, Emiliano was forced to confront his contribution to Dex’s vulnerable position.

If he hadn’t let Dex keep that gun after they’d defended the Valliers’ house, or if he’d incapacitated Dex without letting himself get _shot_ , Dex would not have been arrested. Dex wouldn’t have been found at that church.

“Emi?”

Emiliano jolted out of his thoughts to see Ella’s wide eyes staring at him from across the dining room table. “What?” He glanced quickly at her parents, trying to piece together enough context to determine what she was asking him.

But she simply looked worried. “Are you all right?”

The little mind reader. “I’m sorry. I was thinking.” Impolite of him to ignore his hosts.

“About wh—” Ella started to ask, only to swallow the question in response to a fierce look from her mother. She ducked her head. “Sorry.”

Emiliano stifled a grimace. He’d completely ruined the atmosphere. Maeva made a few efforts to resuscitate conversation, but each attempt petered out. Eventually, dinner progressed in silence.

Well, until Emiliano disrupted everything again by stiffening at a strange sound approaching. “Someone’s coming.”

The whole family froze, as if a bomb had exploded. Emiliano was starting to think that perhaps he’d underestimated their self-preservation instincts, even if they _were_ civilians. Except for Ella, of course, although a swift glare (from Micah, this time) kept her in her seat with her mouth shut.

“I’ll check it out.” Emiliano slid from his seat, ducking into the backyard where the air was starting to cool. He overheard Maeva whispering that she was going to get her gun.

Only a few seconds later, he realized that wouldn’t be necessary. He finally recognized a familiar (incredibly rapid) heartbeat and breathing pattern under the strong smell. “Peter?”

“Hey!” The teenager took a running jump and landed on the very top of the Valliers’ fence, poised there like a squirrel. (A very red-and-blue squirrel, since he was in his garish suit.) The wood trembled under his weight, but held. “I’m looking for Foggy, is he here?”

Emiliano squinted at him. “Why would he be here?”

“He texted me, told me to…” Peter trailed off. He pulled out his phone, fingers a blur as he tapped out a text. A few seconds later, the phone vibrated. “Huh,” Peter said. “He said he was never actually meeting me, just wanted me to…check on things? Huh.” He shrugged. “Well, coast’s clear, but he should’ve known that if you’re here.”

Emiliano didn’t bother arguing, didn’t bother pointing out that Foggy Nelson certainly didn’t place as much faith in Emiliano as Peter or Matty did.

Peter seemed to sense that, somehow. “Or…maybe he didn’t know you were here?” he offered hopefully.

Emiliano shrugged. He didn’t care where Foggy Nelson put his faith.

“Guess I’d better get going then. I have, um, homework? I think? Anyway.” Peter spun around, apparently about to leap away into the growing dusk.

“What do you mean, you _think?_ ” Emiliano interrupted.

Peter’s head jerked back ground as he considered the question. “I do,” he decided. “Have homework. But it’s fine, it’s not due until Thursday.”

“Peter,” Emiliano said slowly. “Today is Thursday.”

Peter’s eyes widened comically and he spun around. “I gotta go.”

“Wait!” Emiliano snagged the back of Peter’s suit before the kid could leap over the fence, tugging him back into the Valliers’ yard. Turning the kid around, he studied him as well as he could through the mask. “Are you all right?”

“Totally fine,” Peter was saying before Emiliano could finish the question.

“When’s the last time you slept? For more than an hour,” Emiliano added pointedly.

Peter shrugged. “Sometimes I feel tired, but then I just chug seven cups of coffee and until I’m not tired anymore. And there’s the fun bonus of my heartrate getting so high it scares Matt.”

Emiliano stared at him. “Your heartrate is scaring _me_.” Here was this kid, staying out all hours of the night trying to protect two cities at once, while Emiliano ate a lazy dinner with civilians. “You have to sleep sometime.”

“Eh, I’ll get to it.”

Emiliano scowled. Why did Matty let the kid be so irresponsible? He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

Peter looked suspicious.

Emiliano deepened his scowl. “Give me your phone, Peter.”

“Um.” Peter pulled his phone from a hidden pocket and dropped it in Emiliano’s hand. “Why?”

“So you can call me the next time something happens that would otherwise make you stay out past midnight.” He put in his own number, then returned the phone to the kid. “Understood?”

Peter looked suspicious. “And if I don’t call you, you’ll…?”

Emiliano gave him a deadly smile. “You really think testing me is a good idea?”

The mask blinked once and gave nothing away.

~

Makhaira

She was trying so hard to be patient. It wasn’t like this was her first job, but it was her first job with such high _stakes_. To say she had to prove herself was like saying Captain America disliked Nazis.

But patience was not her strongsuit.

And even though it sounded like there were plenty of people _in_ prison trying to do her job for her, they weren’t succeeding. But it also sounded like Dex wouldn’t be getting out any time soon.

Well, she was done just sitting here waiting. Swinging her legs over the side of the building she was perched on, she hopped off the edge. Might as well scope out some of the other players in the game.

An infrared camera gave her a nice peek into one of Hell’s Kitchen’s fancier apartments. Expensive locks and curtains were just no match for technology. Judging by the position, the smaller, curvier figure was…in the shower, probably. And the larger one was getting the dog. Looked like he was about to head outside with it.

Oh, this was perfect.

Makhaira hurried into position in the shadows beside the building. She had a tiny pen at the ready, the tip laced with a light paralytic. The door to the complex opened.

Makhaira stepped out into the open, moving businesslike towards the doorway. “Thanks,” she said before she’d even reached it.

And Nelson reacted like the perfect gentleman, stepping aside and picking up his puppy who was straining at the leash, letting her in. “No, Brady,” he whispered to the dog, trying to keep the thing from wriggling out of his arms.

“He’s cute,” Makhaira offered, sparing him a glance over her shoulder. “Looks like a handful.”

“You’ve no idea,” Nelson muttered. “Have a good night.”

She lingered in the hallway, letting the door fall shut but watching Nelson through the glass. He took the dog to the swath of grass between buildings and finally set the puppy down so he could bounce in the short grass, honey-colored fur practically glowing in the light of a yellow security lamp, definitely having the time of his life. Nelson, though, kept glancing over his shoulder. Not like he was stressed, though; the movements weren’t furtive enough. She squinted at him. Habit, maybe? So used to being a target that he couldn’t snap out of it?

It wasn’t fair.

But it wasn’t her job to figure out why bad things happened to good people.

Philosophize later: she didn’t know how much time she had. She took the stairs two at a time until she reached the Nelson’s place. Or the Stahl-Nelson place? Whatever.

Picking the lock took about four seconds, and that was because she wasn’t exactly rushing it. She probably should be, better safe than sorry and all that, but this was more fun. She could take Foggy Nelson if he showed up. And she’d get a puppy out of it, which would be nice. It’d put Murdock on high alert, but that sounded like even more fun.

Except. She frowned. He’d probably be able to track the dog, even if he didn’t know her scent yet. She’d have to leave the puppy, then. Bummer.

Letting herself into the apartment, she quickly scanned the room. Nelson had left the lights on for her, how sweet. And his wife was still in the shower, judging by the steam and the music blaring from a speaker in the bathroom. So she could make all the noise she wanted and not be noticed—they really were considerate. No wonder there were no orders to kill them, despite her murky history with Landman and Zack and despite his not-so-murky dealings with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Anyway. Focus. She found Marci’s bag on the couch, rifled through it, and found her prize: Marci’s wallet. She pocketed her bar card and her punch card for a coffee shop that must be good since there was only one punch left. Sticking the cards deep into her pocket, Makhaira grabbed an apple on the way out. She was heading down the stairs before Marci’s song changed.

And she ran straight into Foggy on the stairs.

The puppy strained at the leash and Foggy hurried to pick him up. “Sorry about—” He cut himself off, eyes sweeping over her. Not the way some men (and women) looked at her. Nothing about it was sexual. It was more like he was scanning for a _weapon_ or something, like he just _assumed_ she must be a threat to him.

Unfair. She blinked at him and widened her eyes. “Excuse me, this is weird, but are you…are you Foggy Nelson?”

That definitely threw him off; he froze like she was the devil. ( _Ha_.) “Uh…who wants to know?”

She laughed musically. “Your face was all over the TV during Fisk’s trial. Both times! You should’ve been DA, sir. I would’ve voted for you.”

“Oh.” He relaxed. “Thanks. I’m happy where I am, but thanks. Feel free to buy a sub from Nelson’s Meats if you still feel like being supportive, though. Or, I dunno, refer some of your criminal friends to my office? But only your innocent criminal friends.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but it wasn’t. Taking a step closer, she tilted her head to the side. “I thought you took Special Agent Poindexter as a client? You know…the fake Daredevil?”

“Client privilege,” he said immediately.

“It’s public knowledge,” she protested.

“Yeah,” he admitted a second later, “but I’ve gotta _try_ to downplay it. It’s a losing battle, though. It’s all over the news, if you look.”

She smiled. “But who watches the news these days, right?”

He relaxed ever so slightly at that, like he and the news didn’t get along.

“Anyway.” Reaching out, she scratched the puppy’s ears, laughing freely at the slobbery tongue on her skin. “He’s not exactly innocent.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” he said gamely. But his heart obviously wasn’t in it.

“It depends,” she echoed, smirking. “Classic lawyer answer.”

“You know a lot of lawyers?”

“Unfortunately,” she teased. “Comes with the profession.”

“Well, watch out. And really, I don’t recommend talking to one without another lawyer present, just to be safe.”

“Even if it’s your own lawyer?”

“That’s why we usually come in pairs,” he said gravely. “Keeps us ethical.”

She itched to point out that it was now public knowledge that his partner ran around in a mask every night, but it felt too early to bring up Daredevil at this point. “But you’re talking to me by yourself,” she pointed out instead.

He grinned like he’d set that up perfectly. “That I am, so I’d better go. Gotta feed this one, anyway.” He gave the puppy an affectionate nudge, then took a firm step backwards, tugging the puppy away. “Nice running into you, though. And your name was…?”

“Makhaira,” she said. He could do all the research he wanted and he wouldn’t find that name. But it didn’t matter either way—he could know her name; he was one of the good ones.

“Goodnight, Makhaira.” He led the dog into his apartment. The lock clicked.

“Goodnight,” she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys this chapter was really fun to write, I swear, but I made the rookie mistake of stopping right before Dex's fight scene. Y'know when you're writing and that little voice says, "Ooh, I just hit a fight scene, time to take a break, I'm sure I'll have no problem regaining my momentum?" DON'T LISTEN TO THAT VOICE.
> 
> Also, Peter's line about chugging 7 cups of coffee is stolen from tumblr user birdsofanarchy who graciously let me use the line!


	9. I Will Shy Away from the Specifics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Chaos Parade by The Great Transparency (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W5a1Ja5Ie0).

Claire

It felt like free-falling. The same kind of thrill she’d felt dancing around Matt that still made her catch her breath. In so many ways, Emiliano was even further from the kind of man she’d ever thought she’d be with. Matt had been extreme enough, but Emiliano? He had more blood on his hands, was further from any hint of normalcy.

But he was…softer, almost, which was a strange word to use of a man who’d made his living fighting ninjas around the globe. Claire had always been drawn to Matt’s conviction, but that same conviction terrified her when it became stubbornness. He would not bend on his beliefs, which meant that challenging them would either break their relationship, if not her. Which was exactly what had happened.

Emiliano was different. Still finding himself. A tiny, horrible part of her was afraid of what would happen when he did. After all, wasn’t it inevitable that he, whoever he was, would be someone with whom she didn’t always agree? And what if the battle lines between them fell in places where she couldn’t compromise?

That that was the thing, though. With Emiliano, maybe not every line would have to be a battle line.

Still. Dating him was gonna be a _little_ more complicated than all of her past relationships. And near-relationships. Combined. The utter lack of shared experiences was hard enough without even getting near the minefield left behind by Stick. She was gonna need some expert advice.

Willingly seeking out Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones just to stick them in the same room wasn’t something Claire thought she’d do in a hundred years.

Willingly seeking out Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones and sticking them in the same room _to ask them for advice_ wasn’t something Claire thought she’d do in a millennium.

But she was dating an ex-ninja. Weird problems required weird solutions and necessity was the mother of stupidity.

So now she was in her apartment with Matt and Jessica crammed together on her couch, and she’d set up her two portable fans set up to blow their scents directly out her open window. The PI just rolled her eyes at all the secrecy and accepted the alcohol Claire offered her. Matt, meanwhile, just looked mildly worried. He kept rubbing the fabric of his pants between his fingers in that nervous tell he _still_ didn’t seem to realize he had.

Claire, for her part, stood in front of them trying not to pace or fidget or do anything to betray how wrongfooted she felt. She cleared her throat. “So, um…thanks for coming.”

“You’ve saved our lives enough times,” Jessica grumbled into her bottle. “Seems only fair.”

“What’s going on?” Matt asked, tilting his head slightly to one side and giving her his slightly-confused-and-unsure-whether-he-should-be-concerned puppy dog face.

“I just, um…I need advice.” She took a breath, held it, and let it out. “About Emiliano.”

Jessica smirked. “Who, now?”

Claire explained as concisely as possible, and ignored Jessica’s exaggerated groan at the mention of ninjas. “He’s trying to build a new life, now,” she finished. “And…” She was blushing. She was an adult woman, but she was _blushing_. “He wants me in it.”

“And you wanna be in it?” Jessica checked sharply.

“Yeah,” Claire mumbled.

“But you need advice,” Matt observed, in a voice which she imagined he used with clients. Calm. Reassuring. Professional. Slightly detached. She did not like hearing it from him. “Is there a problem?”

“ _No_ ,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing, yet. This is all just…” She waved her hand. “Preemptive.”

Jessica squinted at her. “If you’re so worried, why are you dating him?”

She wasn’t _worried_. She was being cautious. Claire remembered belatedly that caution was a foreign concept to these two. Even with relationships. Maybe _especially_ with relationships.

Maybe she shouldn’t have asked for them. Could they even help if they didn’t understand? Besides, Claire had been through her time in high school and college when her friends called her “uptight” and worse, said she’d never get a date with all her overthinking and her boundaries and her rules. Claire was an adult now, she knew who she was and she didn’t care what other people thought, but still. She’d rather not go through that again.

“I like Emiliano,” she said slowly, enunciating clearly, “and he is too important for me to jump into this casually.”

“Still,” Matt said, more quietly and more carefully, “all relationships have problems. You can’t expect to anticipate all of them.”

“I know that!” Why did she feel so defensive about this? “It’s just…guys, he’s a ninja. He’s _killed_ people.” (And she purposefully did not look at Matt when she said that; she did _not_ want to see him flatten his expression into something he thought was unoffensive.) “I think I’m being pretty responsible in realizing that we’re gonna face some problems that literally _none_ of my other relationships have prepared me for.” Unless you counted that aborted coulda-woulda-shoulda with Matt, but even that was just a…a basic jumping off point. “Will you help me or not?”

Jessica held up her hands defensively. “You’re giving me free booze, so yeah, I’ll help.”

“Thank you,” Claire breathed, forgetting to stifle the relief in her voice.

Jessica lifted an index finger. “Rule number one: don’t sneak up on him.”

“What?”

“Don’t sneak up on him,” Jessica repeated gravely, and Matt winced as he nodded along. “War-trained guy like that, you startle him and you’re asking for a broken wrist or something. Some, uh…” Her jaw worked like she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Some reflexes don’t go away.”

On the one hand, Claire knew exactly what Jessica meant. People coming up suddenly behind her still made her jump like human traffickers were about to throw her in the back of a taxi all over again.

On the other hand, she had no idea what Jessica meant, and she knew it.

“Rule number two,” Jessica went on. “Don’t dissect him.”

Claire tried to joke: “I’m a nurse, not a medical examiner.”

Jessica didn’t laugh. Her eyes narrowed. “I’m serious. He’s seen shit. Done shit. Leave as much of it as you can alone.”

Yeah, that seemed like a healthy foundation for a real relationship. “We have to talk about it sometime.”

“Not all of it,” Jessica shot back. “Go slow, at least. And some of it, don’t even touch. Just…don’t.”

Matt stood and started to pace with his hands on his hips, maybe to think better or maybe to get some distance from the whole situation—physically, since he couldn’t exactly do that emotionally. He was still favoring his side, mindful of his latest stab wound. (She was proud of him for cutting his night short, no matter how badly she wanted him to unleash the wrath of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen on the traffickers. But she was also wondering skeptically how long this newfound caution would last. Especially given that he’d already torn it open again, the idiot.)

Claire concentrated on Jessica, who was at least giving her something to work with. “How do I _know_ what not to touch?”

The PI took a long drink from her bottle. “He’ll tell you. Not with _words_ , probably, but…”

Claire bit her lip. Nodded. She still didn’t know Emiliano’s tells as well as she knew Matt’s or even Jessica’s, but she was confident she could figure it out. “And rule number three?”

Matt surprised her by answering before Jessica could, though he kept his eyes aimed somewhere at her feet. “Don’t try to fix him.”

Claire frowned. “But—”

“I’m serious, Claire.” He lifted those sightless eyes and almost met hers. “There are parts of him that might never be the way…the way that you want them to be. And you have to be okay with that. Or else…” Matt’s eyebrows pinched together—like he was already envisioning what it was gonna look like when everything fell apart.

Claire spread her hands desperately. “He _wants_ me to help him.”

“So help,” Jessica said shortly. “Don’t fix.”

~

Foggy

“Foggy Bear, were you in my wallet?”

Foggy focused on his phone. The kittens in the video he was watching were truly adorable and the way they tussled over the toy they were playing with made for a really interesting analogy for the criminal justice system, he was sure, if he just thought about it hard enough. “You may be richer than me, babe,” he called absently, “but I’m not broke enough to steal from you.”

Marci stalked out of their bedroom, voice tinged with uncharacteristic confusion. “I’m missing some cards.”

“Where’s the last place you saw them?”

She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “If I knew _that_ , they wouldn’t be lost, would they.”

Foggy glanced up to see her glaring at the wallet, like the cards had gone on strike as a personal grievance to her. “Maybe they’re in your car?”

“…Maybe,” she said doubtfully. She tossed her head. “Whatever. I can request replacement of my bar card if I can’t find it.”

“You lost your _bar card_?” Foggy yelped, sitting up straight.

She tossed her wallet aside. “That and a punch card. What, Foggy Bear? You look pale.” She came close enough to tap his cheek. “You sick?”

“No, just…sorry.” Matt was normal. Matt wasn’t sneaking around stealing bar cards anymore. Foggy didn’t even know why the memories had hit him so hard all of a sudden. Meeting ghost-Matt in a bar that wasn’t Josie’s was basically a _lifetime_ ago.

“Hmm.” She leaned in for a too-quick kiss that left him wanting more. “Don’t give me your germs.”

“ _You_ kissed _me_ ,” he couldn’t help pointing out.

“Then you’d better hope you didn’t give me your germs,” she said, and with that she was sticking her wallet back in her purse. “I’m off. Have fun with the Wonder Team.”

“Have fun making Briner regret the day he was born,” Foggy answered. Briner, her opposing counsel in her current case, was scum. The kind of defense attorney that was singlehandedly responsible for all the jokes about the world being better off without lawyers. He exclusively rep’d death row defendants, and he enjoyed it. He didn’t care about the gravity of the alleged crimes and he didn’t care about the stakes—the fact that if he didn’t do his job right, someone who was actually innocent might go to jail. It was just a game to him.

Marci’s teeth were sharp when she glanced back to flash him a smile. “Oh, I will.” She opened the front door reveal Matt and Karen standing right outside, Karen with a large, pale green bag slung over her shoulder, and Matt with a bundled-up Gracie in his arms. Marci quickly held the door open for them.

“Thanks,” Matt said, ducking inside, followed by Karen. But not before Marci caught Karen’s arm and whispered something, coupled with a gesture that looked suspiciously like she was describing the location of her sacred chocolate covered almonds. Foggy was almost offended. Marci never let _him_ eat those almonds.

He distracted himself from this personal slight by stealing Gracie from Matt and playing with her. He was planning on corrupting her as soon as possible: everything from instilling in her the proper understanding of the finder points of Star Wars to teaching her to that running around on rooftops was not safe and was actually super dumb. But he had to have a solid foundation with her first, which he needed to start building now.

Matt was suspicious, Foggy was sure, but he seemed to be biding his time to interfere until Foggy did something truly egregious—like teach Gracie to dislike cilantro or something, probably.

Maggie was the last of their little group to arrive, bursting in with a flurry of apologies for running late. Something had come up at the church, and something else had come up after that, _you know how it goes_. Well, Foggy still didn’t know Maggie all that well, really, but he wasn’t shocked to find that she and her son shared terrible time management skills as a direct result of trying to do more things for other people in a single hour than was humanly possible.

But they really needed her, specifically, because they needed all the help they could get in the Dex department. Usually, it was to a defense team’s benefit to drag a trial out. Gave them more time to get evidence despite having fewer resources than the prosecution, and made it more likely that some key prosecution witnesses would get tired and quit just to move on with their lives. Not so with Dex: here all the evidence was already out there, except psychological evidence, and they needed to get Dex out of prison and into a psych ward before he—

Well, before he killed somebody.

They quickly caught her up on the case, and Foggy took a moment to appreciate how calm her face was throughout the whole, bloody story. She barely even blinked. Then again, Dex had literally kidnapped her once, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising how unfazed she was. The woman was a superhero, and her power was unflappability.

Of course, since the problem was with the other inmates, there wasn’t a lot they could do. Dex hadn’t even gone over the top in his self-defense, although Foggy figured that was because he’d gotten, y’know, tased.

“But there’s something else,” Matt said, brow furrowed. “Whenever we talk to him about his case, he’s…”

“Off?” Foggy suggested.

Matt shrugged annoyedly. “I can’t get a good read on him. His heartbeat’s all over the place. He’s lying or nervous or both or…something else, I don’t know.”

Maggie was studying her son. “I thought you said he’s agreeing to your defense?”

Matt sighed. “Yeah, but he’s not… _happy_ about it. Which is fine, I guess, as long as…”

As long as he didn’t pull a Frank Castle on them. As long as he didn’t suddenly invent his own agenda and go rogue.

“Well, he’s been through a lot,” Maggie murmured. “Losing that woman, Gao, and everything with Fisk before that. On top of getting arrested…”

“Well, we already knew he’s got like twenty screws loose,” Foggy reminded everyone. “And who _knows_ how many wires crossed. I’m thinking at least fifteen. Matt, how many d’you think?”

Maggie ignored him and his highly relevant question. “Right, I wonder if maybe what’s wrong with him doesn’t fit into just…one or two neat categories. Have you considered that? And have you considered how hard it might be to make that make sense to a jury?”

“We can’t figure out how to sell it to a jury until we know what we’re selling,” Karen pointed out.

Matt’s brow furrowed. “And in the meantime, we have to make sure nothing happens that’ll make him worse or set him off.”

Foggy kinda felt like they were both missing the point by skipping merrily over the possibility that _Dex would always be super dangerous_ and they as a defense team had yet to actually nail down what their goals were with this, what compromises would be reasonable, and (one of the most important details, in Foggy’s opinion) where the thresholds were in case everything blew up. When, for example, were they supposed to pull the emergency brakes on this thing?

But he knew what Matt would say if he brought any of that up now: that they needed to wait until Dex met with his psychologist(s). Only then would they as a legal team know what they were even working with as far as their client was concerned.

Which, all right, fine. That wasn’t illogical. But it stressed Foggy out since the longer this went on, the harder Matt would find it to extract himself if shit started going sideways.

Karen cleared her throat. “We need to keep digging. Make sure we find everything the prosecution could turn up. I was thinking I could look into his childhood, see what I can find?”

“Good,” Maggie said adamantly. “That could also be helpful if…well, Dex may not be as forthcoming with his psychologist as he should be. He might not even know what parts of his history are important.”

Or he could’ve forgotten stuff. Or blocked it out. Honestly, with Dex, who even knew?

Matt faced Karen and took a deep breath. “Just—”

“Be careful,” she interrupted, a soft smile fluttering around her lips. “I know. I’ll take Emiliano.”

 _What?_ That did not sound…careful. Although Foggy had to admit that it dropped her chances of being murdered or kidnapped down to about zero percent.

Matt was grinning. “Good idea. He’s probably dying to get away from the Valliers.”

Foggy huffed, indignant on their behalf. “The Valliers are amazing.”

“They’re domestic,” Matt pointed out reasonably.

Fair point. A roadtrip with Karen could turn out to be many things, but Foggy was betting that it could never be described as _domestic_.

~

Emiliano

He wished he’d been nervous earlier. He should’ve been nervous when he’d first decided to call her and ask if they could talk tonight, or when she’d answered her phone. Or when he’d gotten dressed in his new jacket. If he’d been nervous then, he could have meditated it away. Probably.

But no, his nerves had insisted on waiting until now that he was right outside her door to start up. There was no time to meditate, and nor could he seek out a fight until the energy drained. He found himself fidgeting—actually _fidgeting_ , he never _fidgeted_ —as he waited for her to answer her door.

She was gorgeous. Her shirt was yellow. New, judging by the stiffness of the fabric and the lingering smell of a department store. He sternly reminded himself that he had no proof that she’d bought a new shirt for him specifically. Women liked to shop, wasn’t that…a fact?

What was he playing at here.

Some of his trepidation must have shown on his face because her smile was slightly amused. “Come in? Do you want food, or should we break out the booze already?” She didn’t bother to lock the door behind him, even though he knew that she was normally fastidious about locking her door, either as a result of her experiences with Matty or simply due to the fact that she was a woman living alone in Hell’s Kitchen.

He tried to decipher why she’d left it unlocked. So she could throw him out? Or…because she trusted him to keep her safe if someone got in?

“Hey!” She snapped her fingers, drawing his attention. “You okay?”

“Of course. Yes. Ah…alcohol?” he asked hopefully.

She eyed him thoughtfully. “So I’m thinking this is a capital-T Talk now, am I right?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Most likely, yes.”

Her heartrate sped up, the echoes skittering around her apartment. “Should I be worried?”

She asked _him_ , as if he had any idea how any of this worked. Clearing this throat, he spoke carefully: “I’ve, ah…I’ve thought about it. About us. About what it would take for us to…to work.”

“Would?” she echoed dubiously.

“Will,” he corrected. “What it _will_ take.”

“And what’s that?”

“I…” He put his hands in his pockets. If he had to fidget, at least it wouldn’t be so obvious. “I don’t know yet. Not entirely. But I _do_ know that it won’t—it can’t— _I_ can’t—” He stopped.

“Can’t what?” Her voice was low. Cautious. Almost like how one might speak to a small child.

He took a deep breath, both to calm himself and to give himself time to get his thoughts in order. “I need to know,” he said at last, “that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And I need to know that I…” He swallowed. “That I can be honest with you.”

“Hmm.” She turned her back to him to get out wine and glasses. “Sounds a bit ominous.”

“As I’m sure is to be expected,” he muttered. “Considering.”

Handing him a glass, she raised her eyes to his. Her gaze was both probing and gentle. “Considering…?”

“Stick’s missions,” he began slowly, accepting the glass. It smelled good. Not too expensive, but consisting of a dark, fruity flavor. “Did Matt ever tell you what they involved?”

She shook her head. “It’s not like Matt ever went on any, right?”

“One,” he corrected. He’d heard from others in the Chaste that Stick returned to Hell’s Kitchen and took out a Black Sky with the help of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

But then, now that he knew Matty, he couldn’t imagine him actually carrying out such a mission. Not if he’d fought tooth and nail to save Elektra. There must be more to that particular story.

Claire scooted somewhat closer. “What were they like?”

“Brutal,” he said flatly.

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

He tilted his head, waiting.

Finally, she simply said, “Tell me more?”

He dropped his gaze to the floor. “I was sent to Hand hotspots. I was sent to destabilize them, if not eradicate them. There was often…collateral damage.”

“You mean…to civilians?”

“Often, yes.”

Her breathing hitched, but again, she swallowed whatever she wanted to say.

He kept talking, partly to fill the silence and partly because surely it would be easier to lay everything out in the open all at once. “Nearly all of my missions involved assassinations. I—I killed people, Claire. In cold blood.”

Her voice was soft as snowfall. “I thought so.”

What? She’d already _known?_ “Did Matty—”

“After you were drugged with devil’s hell. He said you kill people. Not that you _killed_ people. Present tense. So. I figured.”

Emiliano tensed. “What else did he say?”

“That was it,” she said simply.

“You didn’t—you didn’t ask for details?”

“I didn’t want details from him.”

Had she been waiting, then, all this time, for Emiliano to get up the courage? He felt a wave of relief that he’d finally managed it, and a pinch of shame that it had taken this long. He took a deep breath. “What else did you want to know?”

She laid her hand over his—an incongruently gentle gesture in light of their topic of conversation. “How? I mean…how did you do it?”

What, was she hoping that the kills had been distant? A gun, perhaps, or poison? “My sword,” he said stiffly. “Usually.”

“Did you ever kill anyone who wasn’t Hand? Intentionally, I mean, not as…” The words seemed to stick in her throat. “Collateral damage.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Not until I came here. At which point I’ve…I’ve killed criminals, Claire, but not…” He trailed off. He hadn’t come here to defend himself.

She gave a small nod, and for a long time, sat in silence. Still holding his hand. “You know,” she said quietly, at last, “I’m not like Matt.”

He risked a small smile. “In many ways for which I’m very thankful.”

She barely spared him an eyeroll. “I don’t think killing is always wrong.”

He held very still. The words were music to his heart, but he couldn’t risk doing or saying anything that might make her take them back.

“Some people, for instance, do so much harm to other people that it’s impossible to protect the victims without taking out the…the source of evil. Even restrained, they’ll find a way to hurt people.”

“Such as Fisk?” he suggested tentatively.

“I don’t know. It’s not my call.” Her expression turned wry. “I stitch up everyone. If Matt beats a rapist to an inch from death, it’s still my job to keep the bastard from dying. I’m not the one doing the moral math, and I like it that way. I’m just saying…I think it’s possible.”

Ah. But Emiliano had leapt at the opportunity to decide who lived and who died.

Her eyes flicked over him, and he was afraid of what she might read in his face, his body language, even if she couldn’t read his heartbeat. “But I’m also not like Matt because I think…I think the end result isn’t always the most important thing.”

He cocked his head, unsure what she meant and unsure whether he wanted to know.

“I mean…” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and folded her hands between her knees. “For Matt, it’s all about redemption, right? And he thinks that…as soon as he ends someone’s life, that’s it. That person’s locked into wherever they’re going. Heaven or purgatory or whatever as Option A, and hell as Option B. No more chances at redemption. And to him, that’s the most important thing.” Her lips twisted sardonically. “Which is why, I guess, he thinks he can do whatever he wants to people as long as he stops short of killing them.”

“And you, you don’t think that way?”

“I think another thing that matters—just as much or maybe more—is what people do to themselves. When Matt goes out and tortures people, or even just beats them up, I think he’s hurting himself. I think he’s…he’s saving everyone in this city at the expense of his own soul.” She dropped her gaze. “It’s mostly why I couldn’t let myself be with him, when we first met.”

Emiliano nodded silently at the admission that Claire and Matt had, at one point, tried to have something. He’d suspected, sometimes, from hearing the way they talked about each other, and from seeing how much deference they gave one another. It didn’t bother him, although he suspected that it might start to if he knew more details. Depending on what those details were.

Shrugging, she took a sip of her drink. “Anyway. I just think it’s more complicated. It’s about…going against your own conscience. Which Matt does, in one way or another, almost every night. But you?” She glanced up, met Emiliano’s eyes. “Did you even know what you were doing?”

And if he said he didn’t, that would…what, justify him? In her eyes, at least?

A temptation nearly impossible to resist. But he had to be honest with her. “I don’t…I don’t think I know.”

She tilted her head.

“It was orders, Claire.” Or was it?

“No offense,” she said softly, “but you don’t strike me as a sir-yes-sir kinda guy.”

“It’s…it’s different with Stick.” He was sure of that much, but he was also disconcerted to realize that he wasn’t sure that he could explain why.

“How?” she asked.

Because of course she would ask. “You’d understand if you’d met him.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I have.” He distracted himself with a deep drink from his glass. Honesty was not as easy as he’d hoped, and each new admission he made felt like a new bruise on his skin. He couldn’t stop trying to read her responses. Was she disappointed that he didn’t have a better explanation? Was she doubtful as to whether he was even telling the truth?

Was she second-guessing all of this?

She’d be an idiot not to.

She lifted her chin. “I have another question. I have to ask.” With those words, everything about her seemed to change slightly. She looked simultaneously determined and reluctant, like she knew she needed to ask the question but wished she could leave it unspoken. She lifted her chin. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I’m…not sure I follow.”

“Did you enjoy it. Hurting people.”

He opened his mouth. _No. Yes. Of course._ He closed his mouth. He did not know.

Her eyes searched his face. “Emiliano?”

He made a conscious effort not to grit his teeth, the better to ward off his looming headache. “I don’t know, Claire. I don’t really know what you’re asking.”

That was clearly the wrong thing to say. “It’s a simple question.”

It wasn’t, but arguing with her was a poor tactical decision. He looked down at his glass, trying to buy himself time to think. But he wasn’t coming up with anything.

She folded her arms tightly against herself. “I just want you to be honest with me.”

“And I don’t want to lie to you accidentally,” he shot back.

“What…?”

Fine, maybe her question was simple enough. But the answer was too complicated. “Can I…think about it?”

“What?” Her face was incredulous. “You just told me all this about your missions with no problem, and _this_ is the thing you can’t tell me?”

“I know I _can_ tell you, I just—don’t know _how_.”

“I don’t get it.”

This was going so terribly wrong. He’d expected it to go wrong, of course, but not like _this_. He tried not to sound like he was begging (even though he was) as he said, “Please. Give me a day.”

“To what, brainstorm the most politically correct answer?”

He pulled back. Did she really think he’d do that?

“Hey, wait.” Claire half-reached out to him. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

That was quite possibly the first apology he’d ever heard from her. Which, of course, was reasonable. He was the one with a list of sins trailing behind him, not her.

She sighed. “Fine. Take your day. But, you know…” She took a second to gather herself. “You know I can’t read heartbeats, right? I’m not stupid, but if…if you come back with some well-crafted lie, I…”

“Why would I lie to you?”

She sighed again. “Forget it. Take your time, it’s fine. I…I trust you.”

It didn’t sound like it.

But he wasn’t about to argue with her over _that_. He nodded. “Thank you. I should…I should go, then.”

She pressed her lips together and didn’t respond.

He _should_ leave. But first, he took a risk and leaned in, his hand on her upper arm, and gently kissed her temple. And she let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is STILL ALIVE, I promise, I just got super distracted by another fandom. But fear not. I have literally over 100,000 words written for this already.
> 
> They're just...
> 
> ...Spread out over like 60 chapters and not in order at all.
> 
> Whoops.
> 
> In other news, since AO3's email system is currently wack, follow me on tumblr for updates (and to, y'know, chatter about Matt Murdock): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ceterisparibus116


	10. We Thought that We Could Fix Each Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Last Train Home" by FM Static (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHwklcCMECY) which imo is a really cute Matt&Stone song.
> 
> *waves* hi guys! I've been really excited for this chapter for a while, but small warning: it discusses the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) factors, which includes brief reference to various traumas including sexual abuse. Mind yourselves.

Emiliano

Meditation was different here. The sounds of the city, already quieter in the suburbs, were muted by the thick walls of the home, not to mention by the trees and foliage outside. And the scents were domestic, predictable. No surprises. And the couch he was sitting on was perfectly soft.

He’d considered meditating in the spare room. _His_ room. But something had drawn him to the living room (the extra space, perhaps), and now here he was. The walls were a cool cream color that made the room seem even more open and the couches were an unassuming pale gray, but someone (Maeva, he assumed, judging by her personal style) had brightened the room with throw pillows and blankets, adding shocks of deep gold and red. He would have expected to find it distracting. Instead, it made the room feel…permanent, somehow. It made it easier for him to relax and slip into meditation.

One of the first things Stick taught him was how to use meditation to review combat. Replaying battles in his mind, honing in on his mistakes, finding every area in which he should improve. Mastering the art of meditation had allowed him to excel in his training at twice the rate of many of Stick’s other students, and Emiliano privately suspected that Matty was better at it than he’d admit. How else could he have become such a remarkable fighter even after Stick left him?

This morning, however, Emiliano was not interested in reviewing physical combat, and not only because it had been several days now since he’d last engaged in any physical combat to speak of. No, today he had an infinitely more important battle to review.

 _I killed people,_ he’d told her. _In cold blood._

That hadn’t been a mistake, had it? He’d just wanted to be honest. Besides, she’d already believed as much.

 _Did you even know what you were doing?_ she’d asked.

He truly hadn’t known the answer then. He thought he knew the answer now. Yes, yes, he’d known. How could he not? Not even Stick could have so utterly brainwashed him.

Probably?

Probably.

His conscience had still protested. It had been stifled and seared, but not killed, not entirely. So what did that say about Emiliano? And what would Claire think, once he told her?

He’d have to tell her, of course.

Eventually.

 _Do you enjoy it?_ she’d asked. _Hurting people._

And he’d begged for time to think about it.

 _I trust you,_ she’d said—hesitant, but not lying.

Still, he gritted his teeth. He should have had an _answer_. Why didn’t he have an answer?

His breathing was starting to accelerate; sitting up straighter, he carefully slowed it down again. He needed to center himself. But how, _how_ was he supposed to center himself when he didn’t know these basic truths about himself? How was he supposed to center himself when he didn’t even know who he _was?_

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

Taking a breath, he tried to refocus, but the pounding of small feet pulled him out of his meditative state. Tilting his head, he tracked the sounds of incoming children. Ella, followed by a gaggle of other young girls. Her friends, one would presume.

They burst into the kitchen all at once, banging the back door shut behind them, and the home instantly filled with their loud, high voices. Emiliano couldn’t make out any clear words amongst their overlapping voices, and doubted he’d understand the subject matter of their conversation anyway.

He was set on ignoring them until one of them stumbled out into the living room like some sort of overflow. His eyes were closed, but he knew the instant she saw him as her heartrate jumped.

“ _Ella!_ ” she whispered fiercely. “There’s a _stranger_ in your house!”

Ella laughed musically, slipping out behind her friend and leading the rest of the girls with her. “He’s not a stranger! That’s my friend, Emi! Emi, say hi!”

With no idea how to handle this situation, Emiliano kept his eyes closed with the foolish half-hope that they might go away if he simply ignored them for long enough.

The first girl lowered her voice still further. “Is he sleeping?”

Emiliano held perfectly still.

“No, silly,” Ella said, taking on the tone of a patient teacher fondly amused by her pupils’ ignorance. “He’s _medicating_.”

“Ohhh,” the other girls said knowingly.

Emiliano held his breath, trying not to visibly panic as they showed no signs of leaving.

In fact, Ella crept closer. “Emi?”

He still was not used to that nickname. Resigned to his fate, he cracked open one eye. “What, Ella?”

“If you’re from Italy,” she began boldly, “do you speak Italian?”

Where was this coming from? “Yes,” he answered curtly.

Ella elbowed one of her friends. “Sienna speaks Italian too!”

The other little girl blushed and hid under her dark bangs.

Opening both eyes, Emiliano plastered on a polite smile, unsure what else to do.

Ella nudged her friend again. “Say something!”

Blushing harder, Sienna peeked up at Emiliano through her hair. “Um, _ciao?_ ”

Ella burst into giggles. “What’d you say?”

“I just said _hi_ ,” Sienna giggled back.

Ella turned on Emiliano. “Say something back! Don’t be rude!”

He narrowed his eyes, uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Ella’s face lit up with some new idea. “Emi! You can teach me and my friends Italian so we can talk to each other and no one’ll know what we’re saying!”

“Ask your friend,” he said stiffly.

But Sienna shook her head wildly and all the other little girls clustered closer, staring pleadingly up at him.

He folded his arms across his chest. “I said no.”

“You never _actually_ said that,” Ella pointed out.

He shouldn’t have to. His mother language was…personal. And it was a vulnerability, it must be; why else would Stick have tried to drive it out of him? Not that Stick had been opposed to him learning as many languages as possible—the better to infiltrate more parts of the world. But Emiliano had been under no illusion that Italian was acceptable.

Using it with Matty, now, was one thing. Using it with these girls who were merely curious was something else entirely.

“ _Per favore_?” Sienna asked.

There was a whispered consultation as the other girls dipped their heads together to learn what that meant. Then they turned suddenly back towards him, and he looked away too late to avoid the sight of their many pleading eyes fixed on him.

“ _Per favore?_ ” they chorused in unison.

Emiliano glared up at the ceiling. “What,” he said, the word somehow dragging itself out of his chest, “do you want to know how to say?”

~

Dr. Richland

Late. Matt was late. Which wasn’t exactly abnormal for him. But it wasn’t good for him, either. This was a commitment—neither social nor professional but _personal_ —and it didn’t speak well of his mental health that he still struggled to keep it.

But eventually he showed up, which was at least better than the days where he missed appointments entirely. And he’d stopped trying to charm her with a smile so they could skip over comments on how late he was. Now he just apologized. To her, though. Like she was the one missing anything by losing those extra minutes with him. _She_ was fine; he’d just given her more time to do paperwork. He really should be apologizing to himself.

But before she tackled those issues, they had…oh, seven or eight other problems to work on first.

Shrugging off his jacket, he settled onto the couch opposite her. Well, not _settled_. That implied too much relaxation when he always came into the sessions like he was stepping into the boxing ring. But he was no longer perching rigidly on the very edge of the couch either, like a bird ready to take flight at a moment’s notice. So. Progress.

“What’s on the agenda today?” he asked, voice innocuous, head tilted curiously towards her with the low, warm light of her office reflecting off the lenses of his glasses.

One thing she appreciated was that he no longer pretended not to know where she was. Instead, he’d started staring uncannily directly towards her. This transparency with his body language helped her understand what he was feeling at any given moment. Especially when he mimicked looking away, which he appeared to do sometimes unconsciously whenever she dug too deep into a sensitive issue.

“Two things,” she answered, “unless you’d like to add something. I know you’ve been wanting to get advice to help your client, and I have an idea of something that might give you more insight into him. But first, I want to focus on _you_.”

Matt looked mildly disgruntled about that.

At this point, she was used to it. “How would you say that this week has been going for you so far?”

He sighed a little in resignation, but answered the question. “Good. But…stressful, sometimes. The case is stressful. There’s something we’re missing with Dex, we just don’t know _what_.”

“Missing?” That was a little vague. “What do you mean, missing?”

“I mean…” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I can’t read him. I can’t figure out what his goals are, I can’t figure out how genuine he’s being…and I don’t know why.”

“You’re not a mind-reader, Matt,” she reminded him gently. “You’re not even a psychologist.”

“But what’s the _point_ of my abilities and my training if I can’t—” He broke off, mouth twisting wryly. “I’m doing the all-or-nothing thinking again, aren’t I.”

Again—progress. She smiled a little. “Sounds like it. There’s a whole lot of _point_ short of you being able to immediately profile a man who got through military _and_ FBI background checks and psych evals despite the fact that he clearly has some very serious issues.”

He tapped an agitated finger against the couch cushion. They’d agreed that he didn’t have to be perfect, and he was clearly doing a better job at recognizing that fact at a cognitive level. His emotional reaction to that fact, however, was…lagging, a bit.

He’d taken well to cognitive therapy, designed to help him evaluate his own thoughts. She assumed it appealed to his training in logic and reasoning. When he managed to prioritize his own self-care, he actually did an impressive job at recognizing cognitive distortions. Where he struggled more was with thoughts that were mood-dependent: triggered by his own emotional response to his environment rather than by reality. Those thoughts were apparently harder to catch.

But they were working on it.

And she had a new idea about that. “You know,” she remarked, “I’ve been thinking about other therapy options.”

He blinked. “For Dex?”

“For you, we’re still talking about you,” she reminded him.

“Oh.”

“Do you know what dialectical behavior therapy is?”

He shook his head.

“It was designed to treat borderline personality disorder, but it’s useful for anyone who struggles to regulate their emotional responses to things,” she explained. “It’s cognitive-based, so it’s about scrutinizing your thoughts rather than living inside your thoughts, which you’re already used to. But it’s also collaborative.”

“Collaborative,” Matt echoed uncertainly.

She nodded. “Ideally, it’s worked out in group therapy sessions, so people can—”

“No,” he interrupted. “No, I can’t do that. Sorry.”

“All right,” she said calmly. “You don’t have to. But can you tell me why you don’t want to?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Doctor, I’m Daredevil.”

She tried not to smile. “I know.”

“I can’t just…” He gestured randomly. “I can’t just go to _group therapy_.”

“Like I said, you don’t have to. But you haven’t really explained why you don’t want to…”

He tugged on the collar of his shirt. “It’s just…it wouldn’t feel right.”

Safe. He meant that it wouldn’t feel safe. She hummed skeptically, clueing him in to the fact that she was on to him. He pretended not to notice.

“Can we talk about Dex now?” he asked.

And that, that was _also_ progress. When she’d first met him, he would’ve sat in stoic silence no matter how uncomfortable he felt with her questions, and he would’ve never dared to be vulnerable enough to explicitly ask that they talk about something else.

She always rewarded those requests when she could. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Like I said, I had an idea of something that could you understand him. Do you know what ACE factors are?”

He shook his head again, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. They’re a certain set of things that are especially disruptive if you go through them as a child. About two-thirds of adults in America have at least one. Also, because ACEs tend to come together, over eighty percent of adults who have one also have more. Having enough of them can have some pretty significant effects even on adult life.”

Understanding dawned on his face. “You think Dex has a lot of them? You think that explains why he is…the way he is?”

“Partially.” Dex was obviously _extremely_ complicated and she knew better than to try to diagnose from a distance. “They’re a starting point, at least. And you don’t need a degree in psychology to talk to him about these, if you want to see if he has any.”

Matt leaned forward, his expression intent, like he was going over case files. “Somehow I’m not convinced that he’d take it well if I started interrogating him about…childhood trauma.”

She nodded approvingly. “Good point. If you want, I could ask you the questions, and that way you can mirror my posture, my pacing, my tone of voice? Get a feel for them and for how to ask them gently?”

If he agreed, whatever he learned from asking Dex about these would just be a bonus. What she really wanted was for him to think about the implications of his own ACE factors—since she realized by now that he had…too many.

There was a flicker of uncertainty on his face, but then he cleared his throat. “No, yeah, good idea. So, you just…?”

“I’d explain what they are, like I just did with you. And then I’d explain scoring. There are ten recognized ACE factors—five having to do with personal trauma, and five having to do with trauma around a child, like in their family.” She pulled out a sheet of paper. “So what happens is, I go through the list and you tell me which factors you’ve experienced. They’re not weighted—they’re all one point. Do you want to try?”

“Sure,” he said steadily.

“Okay. I’m gonna ask you just a couple of questions, and I want you to tell me if the circumstance described was true for you as a child. As in, when you were under eighteen. Ready?”

“Ready,” he said.

She took a moment to study him, because he had never yet tried to say that he _wasn’t_ ready when she asked, which was worrisome. But he looked nervous, and that simple fact was, ironically, encouraging. If he _weren’t_ ready, he’d be so expressionless that he wouldn’t even look nervous.

“All right,” she began calmly. “Here’s the first question. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? Or act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?”

“No,” Matt said immediately. Then he slowly tilted his head. “Unless, uh…does the year with Stick count?”

“How old were you?” she asked softly. She knew the number. She just wanted him to think about what it meant.

He frowned. “Ten. So, uh…I’m guessing yes, then.”

“Yes,” she agreed, using a neutral tone that she would maintain for the rest of this discussion. “That’s one point for your score.”

“Right,” he said, but his brow furrowed, clearly needing more time to process. She waited patiently until he gave a small nod as if to himself. “What’s the next one?”

She glanced down at the list. “Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? Or ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?”

He let out a small laugh. “Stick, yeah. All the time.”

“What about anyone besides Stick?”

He shook his head. “Just Stick. My dad would never—my dad was great with me.”

He’d been emphatic on that point since the beginning. She wasn’t convinced, however, that none of the nuns were ever guilty of the offenses. “Did an adult or a person at least five years older than you ever touch, fondle, or have you touch their body in a sexual way? Or—”

“No,” he said quickly. “No.”

“Did you often or very often feel that no one in your family loved you or thought you were special? Or your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?”

At his side, his hand rubbed at the couch. A self-soothing gesture. “Not, um…not before St. Agnes.”

“But after?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously.”

She wrote it down.

“Wait, that’s another point?” he interrupted. “Not feeling _special?_ ”

“Mm-hmm,” she said casually.

He frowned at that. “I guess,” he began eventually, “that makes sense for someone like Ella.”

“And Ella is the only child in the world who needs to feel loved and special,” she remarked.

He aimed a charming, sheepish, half-grin her direction. “Okay, I get the point. I’ll just pretend high scores are good.”

Well, whatever helped him cope. “Did you often or very often feel that you didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? Or that your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?”

“Not the last one,” he said.

“But the first one?”

He grimaced slightly. “I guess so.”

“After going to St. Agnes?” she queried. “Or…?”

Matt’s voice sharpened. “It wasn’t my dad’s fault and I don’t blame him. And I knew he’d protect me. It was just, you know…money was tight.”

“I understand.” She made another note.

“That’s a point?” he burst out. “That’s not fair! It wasn’t his fault!”

She deliberately lowered her pen. “Matt, this exercise is to help you understand the impact of some of your experiences. How your reality affected you. Your dad’s intentions or desires for you aren’t what this question’s going for.”

He looked far from assuaged.

“Let’s move on,” she decided. Not that the next question would be any easier. “Was a biological parent ever lost to you through divorce, abandonment, or other reason?”

“Let me guess,” he said sardonically, “it’s two points if I lost them both?”

Part of being a good psychologist was being unsurprised by the things clients said. Unsurprised and unfazed, and therefore a safe person that clients could trust not to overreact. And yet sometimes they still said things that made her heart clench.

“Just one point,” she said quietly.

He nodded tightly.

“Was your mother or stepmother often pushed grabbed, slapped, or—”

“Since she wasn’t there,” he said, not losing that sardonic edge, “I’d say no.”

“Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?”

“No,” he said, appearing to relax somewhat.

“Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?”

“Not that last one. I don’t know about the others.” He rubbed awkwardly at a spot behind his ear. “I mean, my mom was depressed, but she left, so…”

Well, there’d clearly been something wrong with Stick, and she would be surprised to learn that Jack hadn’t struggled with mental illness of one kind or another. But she wasn’t surprised that Matt didn’t think so, and didn’t think their time was best spent convincing him. She moved on. “Did a household member go to prison?”

“No.”

“All right.” She made a final note. “And…that’s it, you’ve got your score.”

He tensed ever so slightly. He was good at hiding it, the tension. But not good enough. “What is it?”

“Five out of ten.” Six, actually. But he could agree with five.

Some of the tension seeped back out. “That’s not bad, right?”

“Well,” she said carefully, “a score of four or more is consistently linked with some pretty serious repercussions.”

That fidgeting hand curled into a fist. “Oh.”

“People with higher scores are more likely to be violent, struggle in marriage, have broken bones—”

“It affects bones?” he blurted out, clearly startled.

She nodded. “You should be aware that thirty percent of men with a score of four or more experience chronic depression. An adult with a score of four or more is also seven times more likely to be alcoholic—”

“Are you sure that’s not just the lawyers?” he asked. The forced humor in his voice was almost painful.

“Being a lawyer is hard enough, I bet,” she said lightly. “A score of four or more also increases an adult’s likelihood to attempt suicide by twelve hundred percent.”

He angled his head off to the side just slightly, as if looking away. “Oh.”

There were other correlations he should know about, too, for people with a score of four or more. interpersonal violence—especially for men. Lower levels of parent-child attachment. Criminality in general. But this was clearly not the time to add more weigh to his shoulders.

Finally, Matt seemed to regroup. He sat up straighter. “But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that bad.”

“What wasn’t?” she asked, gently probing.

“I just mean…” He paused, clearly trying to get his thoughts in order. “I had my dad.”

Until he didn’t. Still, he was correct that his dad was a positive influence in the midst of a relatively chaotic or at least unstable childhood. She nodded encouragingly.

“And…and I had the priests and the nuns, at St. Agnes.”

Priests and nuns who’d thought he was possessed because of his senses, and who hadn’t objected to a mysterious old man spending time one-on-one with a ten-year-old boy, even when the ten-year-old boy came back with cuts, bruises, broken bones, and a new, wary attitude. She wanted to have a word with whoever’d been in charge.

There was more to the Stick story, clearly. Stick, she gathered, being the mysterious old man. Matt had explained concisely that Stick had equipped him with the skills to be Daredevil despite his blindness. He’d also admitted, tersely, that Stick had “technically” mistreated him. He’d shied away from further details.

“There are other parts of your history worth considering. They’re called resilience factors.”

He looked cautiously hopeful. “What’re they?”

“Well, they can lessen the negative impact of the ACE factors. There are fourteen of them. Do you want to go through them?”

He was nodding before she’d finished the question. He stopped a second later, like he didn’t want to look too eager.

She pretended not to notice, and purposefully switched the second question with the first to ask: “Did you believe that your father loved you when you were little?”

He smiled. “Definitely.”

“What about your mother?”

The smile faded. “Ah…not so much. I mean, I do now, but…”

“It’s all right. When you were little, did other people help your mother and father take care of you, and did they seem to love you?”

He paused. “My…my grandmother tried to love me.”

The one who’d said he had the devil inside. “Is that what you thought when you were a kid, or is that what you think now?”

“…Now,” he said reluctantly. “Back then, I thought she hated me.”

She hummed noncommittally. “Have you heard that, when you were an infant, someone in your family enjoyed playing with you, and you enjoyed it too?”

He blinked. “Does that matter, if I was a baby?”

“It matters,” she said simply.

“Okay, well…yeah, my dad. And I know now that my mom did too, so…or does that not count, if I learned that as an adult?”

“It counts. It means that you as a baby were able to feel your mother’s love.”

He took a second to consider that, then gestured at her to go on.

“When you were a child, were there relatives in your family who made you feel better if you were sad or worried?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “My dad.”

“When you were a child, did your neighbors or your friends’ parents seemed to like you?”

He frowned. “Maybe? My dad didn’t have many friends. He took me to church, though, and Father Lantom liked me.”

Good enough. On a related note: “When you were a child, were teachers, coaches, youth leaders, or ministers there to help you?”

“Yeah,” he said definitively.

“And did anyone in your family care about how you were doing in school?”

He grinned. “My dad wouldn’t let me go to bed if my homework wasn’t done, and he’d try to check it even when it was on braille.”

“I’m glad,” she said quietly. “Did you have family, neighbors, and friends who talked about making your lives better?”

“…Maybe? I don’t know, there weren’t that many.”

“Did you have rules in your house, and were you expected to keep them?”

“What, rules are a resilience factor?”

“As long as they weren’t unreasonable or enforced cruelly.”

“Huh.” His smile softened with memory. “My dad was always going on about rules being important, but he never could explain _why_. Not in a way that satisfied me, anyway. But I guess he was right.”

“He was,” she assured him. “When you felt really bad, could you almost always find someone you trusted to talk to?”

“Uh.” He frowned. “Not…not later. I mean, I know now that I _could’ve_ talked to Father Lantom, but Stick said he wouldn’t understand, so…”

So Stick had robbed him of that. She gave herself a second to make sure there was no anger in her voice when she asked the next question: “When you were young, did people notice that you were capable and could get things done?”

“My dad, yeah. Everyone else, though…” He gestured at his glasses. “They made assumptions.”

She made a note. “Were you independent and a go-getter?” She really didn’t have to ask, but she wanted him to have another reason to be proud of himself.

His smile turned slightly shy. “You could say that.”

“Last question: did you believe that life could be whatever you made it?”

He lifted his chin. “Yeah. I did.” He tilted his head. “So…how’d I do?”

“Ten out of fourteen! That’s really good, Matt.”

“Is it?”

“It really is.” She leaned forward towards him. “You went through a lot as a kid, a lot you should never have gone through. But it sounds like you had some good people in your life. Not a lot, but some. Enough. And now…”

He took a deep breath. “Now I have even more. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Dex, though…I don’t know what he went through as a kid, and I don’t know what was there to help him through it. You’re there for him now, which could make a difference. But remember…” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “You’re just one person. You can’t save him. Which means that helping him is going to be hard.”

He shook his head. “I have to try.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t try. I’m just saying…hold onto the good people in your life. Lean on them. Promise me, Matt.”

His sightless gaze seemed to lock onto hers. “I promise.”

~

Emiliano

After the fiasco that was this morning with Ella’s friends, it was a relief to meet Matty on the rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen. Especially because he’d been too distracted by the gaggle of young girls to find the answers Claire needed. Telling her that Matty needed backup was a cheap way to get out of talking to her tonight, but he took it.

“Thank you for asking for me,” Emiliano said as soon as he found Matty. “What do people like the Valliers _do_ all day long?”

“Maybe one day you won’t miss fighting so much,” Matty murmured.

“As if you could ever say the same,” Emiliano retorted.

Matty didn’t even try to argue; apparently he had more pressing things on his mind. “The new human traffickers in the area, they’re still not on police radar.”

“Oh, we’re not breaking up street fights tonight?”

He shook his head. “I tried going after these guys earlier. Got me with a knife.”

Emiliano perked up. “How’d they manage that?”

Matty’s squared his jaw in irritation. “…Air horn.”

“Air horn,” Emiliano echoed, trying to keep his amusement out of his voice.

“Air horn,” Matty repeated sullenly. “They’re small still, but they were expecting me.”

Emiliano frowned at him. “And you’re hoping they, what, got rid of their air horns?”

“I’ve been practicing,” Matty said stubbornly.

“With air horns?” Emiliano felt slightly injured that Matty hadn’t invited him.

“I asked Karen to sound them while I’m drilling. Plus, Gracie’s pretty loud.”

“If you think you’re so ready, why am I here?”

Matty looked confused. “Don’t you wanna be?”

Yes, but that didn’t quite explain why _Matty_ wanted _him_.

“I, uh.” Matty gave an awkward shrug, jumped over onto the next roof, and waited for Emiliano to follow. “I take it things didn’t go great with Claire yesterday.”

Emiliano stifled a wince. “You talked to her?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I just know you.”

Ah. Good to know that his failures in his attempt to have a normal relationship were so obvious. Ella and her friends had probably only talked to him earlier out of pity.

“Hey.” Matty tilted his head, heartrate speeding up slightly to betray the carefully-constructed casual tone in his voice. “When you were a kid…your mother wasn’t around, was she?”

Emiliano threw him a _look_ which, sadly, Matty could not see. “No. Why?”

“Did…did she leave on her own?”

“She died,” Emiliano said shortly. “I don’t remember her.”

Matty made a quiet noise, as if to himself. “And your dad, I know he wasn’t around much. Was he drunk or something?”

Yes. “What does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t,” Matty said quickly.

Emiliano didn’t need to hear his heartbeat to recognize the lie, a fact which Matty apparently realized, because he ducked his head with a small grimace.

“I’ve just—I’ve just been thinking more about the things that affect us. That make us who we are.” He gave a small, self-deprecating jerk of his head.

“Because of Dex’s case?” Emiliano asked. Privately, he suspected that this newfound issue was broader than that, but he’d rather keep the conversation focused firmly on Dex. If they had to talk about this at all.

Either Matt sensed Emiliano’s reservation or he regretted trying to make things more personal, because he backed off and agreed. “Yeah. We have to understand why he is…the way that he is. And we have to make a jury understand.”

“Karen tracked down the manager of the suicide hotline center where he used to work,” Emiliano volunteered lightly. “We can leave tomorrow if she finds someone to watch Gianetta Lucianna.”

Matty scowled. “For the last time, we named her Gracie.”

“You named her Penelope.”

“Penelope _Grace_. Which means that Gracie at least makes sense as a nickname.”

Emiliano ignored this. “The Valliers and the nun both volunteered, so it’s simply a matter of choosing a sitter.”

Matty frowned. “She’s my mother, Em. You can call her that.”

Emiliano ignored this, too. Matty seemed to have forgiven his so-called mother for abandoning him, but Emiliano could not say the same, and he was not looking forward to the moral debate that would inevitably ensue once Matty realized that. “The point is, Karen and I will leave tomorrow. I hope that means you’ll have more answers soon.”

“I appreciate that,” Matty said quietly. “Dex, too. I’ll make sure he knows how much you’re doing. How you’re trying to help him.”

Emiliano shrugged.

“Anyway.” Matty brushed his shoulder against Emiliano, not quite bumping him but not quite leaning against him either. “You know how nice it is, knowing that Karen actually has backup for once?”

Emiliano could imagine. “I’ll keep her safe. I promise you that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think understanding the ACE factors and resilience factors are just super important when working with kids and young adults. Or...even adults, really. I've done a lot of research on it because I think the legal profession should be more aware of them (and...more aware of most things related to psychology, tbh), but of course as I researched I couldn't help thinking about how these would apply to these characters. Like, this chapter explicitly goes through them with Matt, but what about Stone and Dex? What about Karen and Foggy? What about...? I can't stop.


	11. Enemy, Familiar Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Fight Inside" by Red (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95EXpkSTr_0).
> 
> Warning for discussion of human trafficking, including the trafficking of a minor. Also...warning for a cliffhanger. (sorry, guys)

Matt

Thanks to more tips and nudging from Daredevil than should really be necessary, the NYPD had _finally_ started properly patrolling the docks by the Hudson. But criminals were smart. Cut off one access point, and they were sure to find another.

Well, unless someone like Frank Castle came along.

In a sense, Matt had made his own job harder. Identifying this new band of human traffickers had taken that much longer since they weren’t using the docks for transport, and Matt’s hands curled into fists at the thought of how many people had been abused because Matt was too slow to pin down the perpetrators. Times like these made Matt wonder, just for an instant, if the judgement he enacted should be permanent. Just this once.

He shook his head. It wasn’t his call. But he didn’t have much of a conviction beyond that, so he privately hoped Emiliano wouldn’t question him on this.

He’d finally tracked the traffickers to some worn-down apartments tucked in an inconspicuous corner just off the four ninety-five. Made sense: cheap enough rent to not cut into profits, no one around to observe anything suspicious, and close enough to the highway to bring their victims in or send them out. Whichever.

Matt crouched behind the sound barrier between the apartments and the highway, getting a read on the scene. The very air clogged in his throat, heavy with the smell of diesel and drugs and cigarette smoke and guns. Lots of guns.

And sex.

Anger churned deep in Matt’s gut.

Six men, all armed, waiting in the parking lot, keeping an eye on ten women. Well, nine young women and a girl who couldn’t have been older than fifteen. The men all smelled similar enough to mean that none of them were customers. These men worked together. They’d all gotten dinner from the same sandwich shop.

Emiliano crouched next to Matt, body held taught as a bowstring. “Plan?” he breathed.

“Unleash hell.” It wasn’t sophisticated, but Matt wasn’t interested in sophistication tonight.

Nodding once, Emiliano shifted backwards and slipped away. Matt easily followed his footsteps as Emiliano circled around the apartment to wait hidden behind a vehicle, trapping the traffickers and their victims between them.

And then Emiliano waited. For Matt to give some kind of signal, or just for Matt to move.

Which Matt did, running up the side of the sound barrier, flipping over the edge, and landing in a shoulder-roll that took him behind one of the men’s vehicles. Emiliano moved simultaneously, silently mirroring him from across the parking lot. Matt caught the whisper of movement as Emiliano drew his sword.

(Matt had thought about asking for Emiliano his own sword. But the anger burning steadily away deep inside Matt spiked when one of the men grabbed the fifteen-year-old, cursing at her for some irrational reason, and on second thought he realized it might be a good thing that he didn’t have such a lethal weapon.)

Gritting his teeth, Matt shoved the distracting thoughts from his mind and got to work. He darted out from behind the vehicle, sensing Emiliano moving in tandem. They rushed the men, who yelped and swore and raised their guns.

Flinging himself to the ground, Matt rolled under the first spray of gunfire, coming up next to a man and knocking the knees out from under him, grabbing for the man’s wrists and twisting until he dropped his weapon. But he couldn’t stay in one place for long unless he wanted bullets riddling his body, so he sprang up and away, twisting at the last second to avoid more gunfire.

He twisted too hard, too fast, and felt some of Claire’s stitches rip in his side. Whatever, that was fine, that wasn’t the problem.

The guns, though. The guns were a problem.

Not that Matt couldn’t handle guns; he could. At least, he could when the only person he had to worry about protecting was himself. But it was always, _always_ harder to fight when the victims were still at the scene, when one wrong move meant the bad guys could use them as hostages or human shields, or maybe put a bullet in them just to test Matt’s commitment to the rescue.

Matt threw his baton to disarm the next closest man, but before he could seize his advantage he heard a stifled gasp and sensed the barrel of a gun tucked up under the chin of the young one, the little girl. He froze.

So did Emiliano—who, of the two of them, really should’ve been better at remembering their lessons from Stick.

Instead, they both showed their hands, and their reaction was met with a low laugh. As for the girl, she didn’t whimper. Used to this, or knowing it wouldn’t make a difference.

The other men took their cues from the first. Those who’d been disarmed scrambled to recover their weapons and soon five more guns were pressed against five more throats. The remaining women huddled together, their hearts a terrified thunderstorm.

The man with the girl tapped his finger against the trigger. “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, I know you.” His head turned towards Emiliano. “But who’re you supposed to be?”

Emiliano tightened his grip on his sword.

“Another hero?” the man sneered. “And you can’t even rescue these pieces of shit.” His free hand curled around the girl’s tiny wrist, engulfing it. He raised his voice. “You two just stay where you are, and no one gets hurt. You move a muscle, you even _flinch_ , and we blow their heads off. Understand?”

His heart pounded fast, but steady. Matt’s mind raced. He would’ve thought that the girls would at least be too valuable to kill. But…not if keeping them alive meant releasing witnesses who could turn around and give up the entire operation.

The man tugged on the girl until she took an unsteady step backwards. And another. And another. Getting closer and closer to one of the cars.

 _Think_ , Murdock! Too many guns, not enough batons and not enough time to disarm them all while keeping the girls safe. The man’s heartbeat promised that Matt’s action would mean death, but letting them go meant surrendering them to more senseless abuse for as long as it took Matt to find them again. But he _would_ find them again. And at least they’d be alive.

Probably.

It was a calculus that Matt did not feel qualified to make. But Emiliano was holding completely still, waiting for Matt to choose their next move. For a selfish second, Matt wished Emiliano would make his own call if only so the responsibility wouldn’t weigh on Matt. But Emiliano wasn’t as experienced with vigilantism yet. The choice was Matt’s.

Gritting his teeth, Matt uncurled his fists and raised his hands. Emiliano followed his lead. Matt heard the repeated _click-click_ of cars unlocking. Keeping the barrels of their guns pressed tight against innocent skin, the men herded their prey into the vehicles.

 _Click-click._ Doors locked. Engines started. Tires squealed, and Matt and Emiliano were left standing in an empty parking lot breathing in fumes.

~

Micah

“Matt!” Ella ran halfway across the gym, only to skid to a stop when she noticed another friend perched on top of the lockers. Changing trajectory, she took off like a rocket towards him. “Peter!”

Micah followed more slowly, letting the door to the gym fall shut behind him, only mildly concerned that Ella would try to climb up the lockers to get to Peter. She’d been vibrating with excitement since this morning when he told her that everyone’s schedules had finally lined up so that she could practice self-defense not only with Matt, but with Peter too. She was thrilled, and Micah couldn’t help feeling touched that the teenager was sticking around even now that Ella was no longer in any danger.

This was also was the first time they’d trained since Matt told him the truth about his teacher, the man who’d done enough damage when Matt was only eleven years old that Matt could instantly understand Ella’s story. Normally, Micah focused his attention on Ella during these sessions: watching to see if she was obedient and respectful, watching in case she hurt herself, watching to see that gleeful look in her eyes that meant she was imagining using something she was learning on some kid at school—a look that meant Micah would definitely have to sit her down when they got home and go over, again, all the reasons why she couldn’t pick fights with all the kids she thought were bullies.

But this time, Micah was also concerned about Matt. Especially when he looked close enough to see he tension in Matt’s neck and shoulders, a darkness in his eyes. Micah opened his mouth so ask him about it, but Ella had already gotten her hug from Peter and came running back, chattering a mile a minute.

Matt whipped out a smile and pasted it on so fast that Micah felt like he’d witnessed a magic trick.

Meanwhile, Ella tugged Matt and Peter into the ring. No one was using pads yet, but Matt had already set the pads on one of the benches in preparation for their use, and Micah felt a small flare of pride in his chest.

Matt crouched down so that he and Ella were more or less the same height. “I have something special planned for today, Ella.”

“Sparring?” she asked excitedly. “With Peter?”

He shook his head. “There might be time for that later, but I wanna focus on something else first. Do you know what muscle memory is?”

She scrunched up her face. “Is it like…memory foam?”

“No, that’s a mattress. Muscle memory is what happen when you do the same thing with your body over and over until your body can do it without you having to think about it.”

Her eyes lit up. “Can I do my homework like that?”

Peter snorted out a laugh and Ella looked pleased with herself, but Matt looked slightly horrified, and Micah remembered that Matt was not only Daredevil but also a lawyer, also known as a geek. Or was it a nerd, now? Whatever the kids called his type.

“Thinking about your homework is _good_ ,” Matt told her sternly. “That’s what makes it valuable.”

She seemed dubious.

“The point is, if something happens and you’re scared or angry, you won’t be able to think clearly. But if you practice what I’m about to show you enough, you’ll be able to do it automatically. For example, if Peter throws a punch at me…” Matt gestured, and Peter stepped forward and aimed a punch at Matt’s face; Matt immediately stepped in, batted Peter’s arm away, and threw a strike back, stopping with his fist brushing Peter’s chin. “See? Didn’t even have to think about it.”

Her eyes widened. “I wanna do that!”

“That’s what we’ll practice,” Matt promised. “We’re gonna do what are called _drills_. That means doing the same thing over and over until your body has it memorized.”

She bounced on her toes. “I wanna try!”

He grinned. “I’m serious about doing it over and over. It might get boring.”

Her eyes flashed defiantly. “I wanna get _good_.”

His smile softened. “Good.” With that, he stood up and told her to stand naturally, like she wasn’t expecting anything. Then he threw a punch, and directed her on how to dodge and throw a strike of her own. “Step in like I did,” he reminded her. “The bad guy will expect you to flinch away, so you can surprise him by getting in close. Plus, you’re smaller, and your reach is shorter—if you go backwards, you won’t be able to hit him at all.”

Ella’s small forehead scrunched up in concentration, but she threw herself into the practice, making sure to stand _very_ casually (which meant adopting increasingly ridiculous poses) and acting surprised when Matt punched at her. But she only messed up and stepped the wrong direction twice before she figured out how to duck forwards, just outside his arm, and drive her knee against the side of his.

She was so small, though. Matt kept insisting that the knee was a vulnerable target, but Micah had a hard time believing that her body would actually be able to do enough damage. He hoped Matt would remind her that her first goal should always be to run.

Eventually, Peter took Matt’s place, giving Ella the chance to practice her moves on someone with a different body type. Finally, they switched over to Ella’s favorite part of training: sparring. They suited up with gloves and padded helmets, which Matt and Peter evidently wore not because they expected Ella to be able to make any head shots but to set a good example. (Micah couldn’t tell them how much he appreciated that.) Ella’s helmet made her head look about three times too big for her body.

Once the sparring started, Ella used her higher energy levels to her advantage, darting to and fro across the ring. Matt tracked her effortlessly, but he eventually made Peter put on a blindfold, and Micah noted that there were one or few times when she was able to slip behind Matt and sneak up on Peter, landing a few quick punches at the small of his back, making Peter yelp and Matt laugh.

“Dad!” she called, spinning around to face Micah. “Did you see that?”

Matt tapped her lightly on the top of her head from behind. “Focus,” he reminded her, voice serious but mouth twitching with amusement.

She stuck her tongue out at him and plunged back into the fight.

Eventually, though, Ella’s moves got sloppier as she wore out, and Matt called a halt. He nudged Ella out of the ring so she could shed her gear and plop down onto the bench next to Micah, panting. But Matt and Peter stayed in the ring.

“Ella,” Matt said, leaning against the ropes, “wanna see what you’ll be able to do if you keep practicing?”

She scooted to the very end of the bench. “Yes! Yes!”

Micah wasn’t so sure about this. Ella didn’t have fancy senses, for one thing, and he wasn’t sure he wanted her getting so experienced with fighting. But he was curious despite himself, and the nine-year-old boy in him that used to read comic books couldn’t help leaning forward a bit to watch.

Matt and Peter squared off. Then, like some invisible referee had signaled them, they were suddenly in motion. Attacking, parrying, and counter-attacking like they could predict each other’s movements. Peter still wore the blindfold, and he was obviously less experienced, but he made up for it with energy in a way that reminded Micah of Ella, in a way that made Matt grin, proud and sharklike, even when Peter shot into the air and flipped straight over Matt’s head. Matt barely spun around in time to block the new barrage of strikes.

When Matt finally stopped the match, Micah got the sense that it was for Matt’s sake rather than Peter’s.

“Not bad, kid,” Matt panted, ruffling Peter’s hair when Peter pulled off his sweaty helmet, and Peter bumped his shoulder against Matt’s in retaliation, beaming.

From what Matt said, Matt’s mentor never treated him like how Matt was treating Peter. And Micah figured Matt had never leaned into his mentor the way that Peter was now leaning into Matt as he chattered about the match.

Matt, who looked like he was bleeding, red seeping under his shirt.

Peter was apparently talking too much to notice and a quick look at Ella confirmed that her eyes were on Peter, not Matt. But there would be chaos as soon as she realized Matt was hurt.

“Ella,” Micah said quickly, “why don’t we—”

Too late. “Matt!” She launched herself off the bench. “You’re bleeding!”

A wince ghosted across his face. “Am I?”

“Shit,” Peter blurted out, and ducked too slow to avoid Matt cuffing him over the head.

It was a bit unnerving that Matt could smell French toast from four houses down when he came to visit, but consistently failed to notice when he was bleeding. Especially because the only explanation Micah could think of was that Matt was just _too used_ to the smell of blood.

(Not used to the smell of French toast.)

“Where’s the, uh…” Micah glanced around, knowing there was a first aid kit in here somewhere.

“Guys,” Matt protested. “It’s fine. It’s not like I’m bleeding out, or—” He broke off sharply, eyes daring towards Ella.

Ella, who hadn’t made a noise, but had flinched back and was now staring up at Matt with her eyebrows pinched together like she was suddenly thinking very hard.

“Ella?” Micah prompted when she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like her to keep her thoughts to herself. “Something wrong?”

His uneasiness grew when she didn’t immediately deny it. Instead, she bit her lip. “Um, Matt?”

There was something in her voice, something Matt apparently recognized judging by the way his body tensed. “Yes?” he asked carefully.

“Were you, um…” She lowered her voice until Micah could barely hear it. “Were you really there when my other dad died?”

Micah stiffened. Something told him she must’ve been thinking about this for a while, if a casual comment about bleeding out would bring it up.

“Yes,” Matt said quietly.

Peter winced, eyes wide, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but there. He didn’t move, like he hoped he’d disappear if he held still enough.

It didn’t seem to matter; for Ella, the only person in the room was Matt. “You—you killed him.”

Matt swallowed. “Yes.”

“Ella,” Micah tried to intervene. “Why don’t we talk about this later?”

She ignored him, her voice small as she asked, “Did you have to, though?”

Matt’s jaw barely moved when he answered. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to.”

“Ella, buttercup…” Micah put his hand on her shoulder, squatting down so he was at her level. “What are you saying?”

Tears started glistening in her wounded eyes. “What if you didn’t have to,” she blurted out.

“Didn’t have to…” Matt sounded lost.

“I know he did bad things, but—but—” She sniffled, and suddenly the words came pouring out: “ _Dex_ is getting help and Emiliano’s a _real person_ now, and maybe my dad would—” She sniffled louder. “Maybe—maybe he’d be better, too, if he just—if he just got the _chance_.” Two tears rolled down her cheek, one after the other. “Did you _even_ think about that?”

Matt looked…helpless. That was the only word for it.

“Ella,” Micha said firmly, and repeated her name again until she finally tore her eyes away from Matt and looked at him. “Your dad didn’t want help. He didn’t want to get better.”

“How do you _know?_ ” She threw another question at him before he could even try to come up with an answer. “Emiliano and Dex didn’t want help either, not at first!”

Micah wanted to ask how _she_ was so sure about that, but he bit the words back. No matter what reasoned response he came up with, she’d fire back with more arguments. She didn’t want answers or explanations…she was just hurting, so fiercely and so suddenly that Micah couldn’t keep up.

“C’mere,” he said softly, tugging her towards him. She resisted for a split second, then came crashing into him, tears wetting his shoulder. He picked her up, peering past her mane of curls to see Peter still staring at the floor and Matt looking stricken. He wished Matt could see the apologetic look he was sending him. That conversation would have to wait. He held Ella closer. “Let’s just get you home, all right?”

~

Emiliano

It was evening. He should call Claire. He’d had his day, and then some, and yet he’d gotten no closer to discovering the answers to her questions. But he should call her anyway.

Instead, he traveled to the Murdock apartment, where he found Karen waiting outside. She walked him to a small parking garage. Emiliano could only imagine how expensive it was to keep her car here, but he also was well aware that any expense would be worth it to Karen Murdock if it meant maintaining her freedom. After all, she couldn’t parkour across the city like Matty could, but this car could take her anywhere.

And yet, as she slid behind the wheel, her heartrate sped up. Fear? Emiliano turned, quickly scanning the garage with his eyes as well as the rest of his senses. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “What is it?”

She closed her door, muffling her voice. “What? Nothing.” She clicked her seat belt into place. “Get in.”

Emiliano complied, slipping into the passenger’s seat. The car smelled old. It had belonged to someone else before she took possession. “Your heartrate sped up.”

She shot him a glare. “So?”

Somewhat taken aback, he gestured defensively. “I thought there was danger.”

She sighed heavily. “No. We’re fine. I just…don’t have great memories with cars.”

Her brother. Of course. Did she think of him every time she got behind the wheel? Or was there something about this trip in particular that caused the memories—and the anxiety—to resurface?

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t worry about me.”

Would that be so terrible? “I’m not,” he lied.

“Good.” She stabbed the keys into the ignition with unnecessary force.

A stilted silence fell between them as she pulled out of the garage. Emiliano searched for something to say. He could ask about Karen’s daughter, but what was there to tell? Penelope Grace was an infant. He could tell her about Ella and her friends, but the memory prickled; it was too personal. Why was he only thinking about children, anyway? Surely they had other things to talk about than children. Children hadn’t even registered in Emiliano’s life since he’d _been_ one.

Karen finally took it upon herself to break the silence. “Matt said you guys went after some traffickers last night.”

Their failure to complete the mission still stung. Emiliano couldn’t help feeling that it was his fault, and Matty had offered no assurances to the contrary. “Yes.”

“You’re gonna try again, right?”

“When we can.” Emiliano watched the city flash by out the window. Although the view from the road was certainly different than the view from the roofs, every once in a while…something looked familiar. The city looked familiar. “They’ll be expecting us, though. And they know a strategy that works.”

Karen’s grip on the wheel tightened. “Using their victims as human shields.”

“We’ll come up with something.” There were plenty of tactics they hadn’t tried using yet. Setting an ambush either in the apartment or at some destination, posing as clients, going after the traffickers when their victims weren’t around.

“So…” Karen glanced at him. “You’re really taking to this vigilante thing.”

Emiliano wrinkled his nose with distaste. _Vigilante thing_. Like he and Matty were playing pretend. “It’s a mission.”

“Yeah, but I mean…it’s nothing like Stick’s missions.”

“It’s quite similar,” Emiliano retorted. Aside from the lack of deaths.

“Okay, okay.” Karen fixed her eyes on the road. “Don’t bite my head off.”

Emiliano ground his teeth together, unsure why he was so irritated. Except that…so much had changed for him, _was_ changing for him. _He_ was changing, and he didn’t even understand what he was changing _into_. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done with Stick, for Stick, but he wanted _something_ from his old life to remain.

Karen changed the subject. “So, I’ve been thinking about how you’re training Matt. And me, a little.”

From the upward note of her voice, Emiliano wondered if her next comment would be a request for more training. He’d be only too happy to oblige, although he would’ve thought Matty wanted the honor.

“Maybe I can pay you back?”

Emiliano blinked at the windshield. “Pay me back?” That made no sense, none at all. Sharing his expertise with them was the only thing he could offer them and he certainly hadn’t expected anything in return, and even if he _had_ , they’d already paid him back. More than he could say.

“Yeah.” She turned onto a side street. “Do you know how to use a gun?”

Emiliano swiveled to stare at her.

She flushed slightly. “Sorry, of course you do. Why wouldn’t the guy who taught you swords teach you guns, too? They’re more efficient. I just…I don’t know, Matt never mentioned Stick using guns, so I guess I figured…” She trailed off awkwardly.

“No, you’re correct. Stick never taught me to use firearms. They seem easy enough in principle, though.”

“Just because you can pull a trigger doesn’t mean you’ll be accurate,” she pointed out. “I’m just saying, if you wanted to practice…I’d be happy to show you what I know.”

Emilian took his time processing that. He’d never expected her to make such an offer, especially given her…violent history with the weapon. Then again, that hadn’t stopped her from keeping guns close; she had one in her bag right now. To be fair, if someone expected _him_ to give up every weapon he’d ever used for an ill purpose, he wouldn’t even be able to use his hands. Emiliano didn’t say any of this aloud, however. “Is Matty okay with this?” he asked instead.

“I don’t need his permission,” she said indignantly.

Emiliano rephrased. “Does Matty _know_ about this?”

Her voice hardened. “No.”

To be sure, Emiliano was the furthest thing from an expert on relationships. But he couldn’t see this ending well, and he did not want to contribute to anything that came between Matty and Karen. “Perhaps you should let him know first.”

Karen sighed. “You know how he is about guns.”

Emiliano didn’t, not specifically, but he could imagine. He didn’t say anything.

“Never mind.” Karen pulled into a small parking lot in front of the suicide hotline center, populated by only a few other vehicles, most of them cheap. “We’re here.” She jabbed at the button to release her seatbelt. “Let’s go.”

~

The people at the center hadn’t had much to say about Dex. Well, no—they’d had an overabundance of opinions about the man who’d been so quiet and unassuming during his short time with them, who’d gone on to tear through Hell’s Kitchen in a stolen devil suit. But they hadn’t had anything useful to say.

Eventually, they showed Karen and Emiliano to a case of old CDs. CDs they couldn’t take with them due to confidentiality concerns, although Karen sweet-talked her way into getting the two of them a couple hours with headphones and a computer. Something about attorney-client privilege. Her heart had stuttered a little, but whatever deception she’d employed had gone unnoticed by everyone but Emiliano.

They’d only gotten through two CDs each when Karen found it. She’d passed the headphones to Emiliano to listen.

_Tell me, Craig. Are you thinking about taking your own life right now?_

_What kind of gun do you have, Craig?_

_Let me ask you a question, Craig. If this asshole stepdad of hours is givin’ you so much grief, why take your own life? Why not—take a deep breath!_

The conversation changed like someone had flipped a switch. Karen’s eyes narrowed as she wrote down the number of the CD, and then she determinedly returned to listening until they ran out of Dex’s CDs. No other similar incidents occurred, but Emiliano still felt disturbed just at the memory of the darkness in Dex’s voice. He opened his mouth, but Karen shushed him, not letting him speak until she’d slipped the CDs back into the case, returned the case to a staff member, and dragged Emiliano out the front door.

“Okay,” she breathed in the open air, taking the front steps two at a time. “So, that’s not great.”

Emiliano nodded grimly. It was the same as what they’d read from the transcript, but they’d hoped their investigation would reveal missing context that might reframe Dex’s words. A hope disappointed. Unless there was other context they could think of that would make it…sound better?

“And did you hear _how_ he said it?” Karen chewed on a fingernail, looking back over her shoulder at the center. “So…cold. Calculating.”

“Were his parents divorced?” Emiliano asked suddenly.

She stopped walking. “What?”

“Perhaps the caller reminded him.”

“I think one of his files said he was taken from his parents, put in a foster home. I don’t think they split up, though. His dad was just…” She trailed off.

“Abusive,” Emiliano finished quietly.

“I mean, okay…” Karen tucked her hair behind her ears, lowering her voice as a woman walked towards them, not speaking until the woman had passed them on her way to the center. “If we’re trying to present him as _not_ a cold-blooded killer, we’ve gotta explain that transcript. Because otherwise, we’re screwed if it gets admitted. So I’m thinking we tie it back to his history, like you said. We figure out more about what his dad was like, and go from there?”

“And you point out that directing the caller’s anger towards his stepfather might have saved his life.”

“…What did you just say?”

Emiliano liked Karen, he really did. But she had this unnerving way of staring at him, as if she could see straight into his mind, his heart, his past. He averted his eyes. “The caller was suicidal. To Dex, perhaps murder was the lesser of the two evils. It was…helping the caller, in a way.”

Karen raised her eyebrows. “You think?”

Emiliano deflected. “What do you think?”

She chewed on her lip. “I think Matt will patronizingly inform us that we can’t say that in court.”

“Perhaps not,” Emiliano said stiffly, “but we should bear it in mind that he might not have wanted that caller to kill his stepfather just for Dex’s own amusement. It could have come from a good place, misguided though it was.”

Karen half-scoffed, half-laughed. “ _Misguided_.”

Emiliano shrugged.

“I mean, it’s a good thought, and this is what brainstorming’s all about.” Shoving her hands in her pockets again, she started walking again, stepping lightly off the sidewalk into the parking lot. “This was the kind of thing we had to do in the Castle case. Look past the actions, think about the _why_. I was good at it. Better than Foggy. Even better than Matt, I think, once you discount his senses.” She glanced sideways at Emiliano. “You’re better than they are, too.”

Now that she mentioned it, Emiliano had a theory as to why that might be. He’d be shocked if she hadn’t reached the same conclusion herself. He did not want to discuss it out loud.

“C’mon.” Karen quickened her pace on their way to her car.

That was when Emiliano noticed the footsteps behind them. The woman who’d passed them was doubling back. Perhaps she’d forgotten something in her car? Innocuous enough, but Emiliano couldn’t help categorizing her threat level. Her heart was a steady drumbeat. She wasn’t gearing up for an attack. Not a threat.

He wondered what Claire would think if she knew he evaluated the world this way. Would it make her feel safer when she was with him? Or would she think him paranoid, forever warped by Stick’s training?

Between the distraction of his own thoughts and the fact that he woman’s heart still did not change, Emiliano did not realize what was happening until he heard a tiny _snap_ and caught the sudden aroma of devil’s hell wafting through the air. His heart lurched in his throat and he grabbed Karen’s arm. “Stop—”

Too late—the needle cut into her flesh and the tang of her blood welled up in the air. Emiliano shoved her behind him, and _now_ the other woman’s heartrate spiked. She skipped backwards with impeccable footwork, her right hand holding the blood-tipped needle, which emerged from a small bottle, a plunger half-depressed. Her chilled blue eyes flashed wide for only an instant before she settled into a steady stance, a small smirk curving her lips. A knife appeared in her other hand.

Emiliano would not have hesitated, even given that he was without a sword, but he couldn’t be sure if any devil’s hell remained on the needle or in the attached bottle. He was in no hurry to relive its exposure and, besides, there was Karen to think of. Her heartrate was out of control behind him.

The woman in front of him tipped her head to the side, eyes running up and down his body. “You’re not the Devil,” she observed. “But people do say there’s two of you now. You’re the other one?”

If he attacked from her left, he might incapacitate her before she injected him with whatever was left. He might get cut, but that was a hit he could take. He shifted his weight by a miniscule amount, just enough to make his leap that much quicker.

She mirrored him instantly, eyes lighting up. “You wanna go?”

Emiliano recalculated. She wasn’t some random thug who’d gotten ahold of the drug on the streets; she was trained. She had to be, to have noticed and correctly interpreted that slight movement. Perhaps she’d inject him after all, and then he’d be worthless to Karen.

He took a slow, deliberate step backwards, straining with all his senses to pick up on any signal that she intended to attack.

She would. She had to. It was only logical; she was a criminal, she knew Emiliano was working with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, and she knew Emiliano was currently disadvantaged by his need to protect Karen. This fight wasn’t a guaranteed win for her, but she had to know it was the best chance she’d get at taking out one of the men who hunted people like her.

Instead, the smirk softened into a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to be clear, I'm drawing a bit from the comics to flesh out what Dex's parents would've been like, since that's pretty important stuff for this fic, but I'm not including his brother because this fic has quite enough characters as is. ;)


	12. Can You Hold Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! <3 Chapter title from "Can You Hold Me" by NF (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q6GJ-MkFsg).
> 
> Warning for a hint of suicidal ideation. It's under the influence of devil's hell and gets interrupted very quickly, and things move on.

Emiliano

The woman’s eyes flitted past Emiliano, looking at Karen over his shoulder. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because her breathing and heartrate slowed. She stepped casually backwards, inclining her head at Emiliano as if in salute. She kept both blade and syringe in hand.

Emiliano remained poised on the balls of his feet, anticipating the slightest sign of weakness, of distraction. None came.

Her lips parted even as she continued to retreat. “What’s your name?”

He gave no answer.

She looked disappointed, but unsurprised. “Well, stranger, good luck.” She almost sounded as if she meant it. She backed into the shadows, dodging the streetlights.

“You’re not going to fight me?” he burst out. He should leave it alone; he should focus on Karen. But he couldn’t remember the last time an opponent had disengaged like this. Not running away terrified, but walking away without a backwards glance.

Her voice floated back to him. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

A chill raced down his spine. Her footsteps receded until all Emiliano could hear were Karen’s tremulous breaths.

He still waited a second more; he’d underestimated this woman once already, and he refused to do it again. But one second was all he could spare before Karen whispered his name. He turned.

Her purse had fallen to the ground, half-unzipped. She must’ve been attempting to get to her gun when the first effects of the drug hit. She scrambled to pick it up again, holding the bag close to her chest, her wide eyes staring at him, panic flashing in their icy depths. She looked terrified and desperate and very much like she needed him to tell her what to do.

Emiliano took a slow step towards her, hand outstretched (even as he kept an ear out for the woman to return). “Now, Karen…”

She flinched away. “Stay back!”

“No, shh, let me—”

“I’ll hurt you,” she hissed, even as her pupils dilated with fear.

“I need to get you somewhere safe so I can call Claire.”

Her eyes darted around his face. Finally, she swallowed and nodded stiffly. “All right. Okay, w-where…”

“Here. Easy. Come here.” She finally let him take her hand. He pulled her closer, his left hand on her left arm and his right arm around her, both supporting her and locking her in place lest she tried to flee once the hallucinations began. “Are you familiar with the symptoms?”

“I know what to expect,” she said between clenched teeth, “yes.”

He kept his eyes on hers. “I need to get you somewhere safe. I’m going to pick you up.” He’d be able to move faster carrying her than she could on her own right now, and he didn’t want to give her the chance to run away if something spooked her.

She tensed, but didn’t fight as he slid an arm down under her knees, gently picking her up. He carried her to a shop only a block down from the hotline, something selling antiques. The important part was that it had closed for the night. Emiliano felt no guilt at all about breaking in so he could set Karen down in a corner. She huddled on the wooden floor, her back pressed to both walls, and started shivering. Not from cold, he knew, but he still pulled off his jacket and draped it around her. Perhaps she’d find the added weight soothing. He crouched in front of her. “Do you feel sick?”

Her lips pressed so tightly together, they turned white. “Not yet.”

“All right,” he said softly, pulling out his phone to call Claire. Upon hearing her voice, he stood and turned away, explaining the situation as quickly and quietly as he could.

“Did you call an ambulance?” she demanded.

No. He hadn’t even thought of that. “What number is it, again?”

“9-1-1, but I’m on my way too. Where are you?”

He gave the name of the shop. Behind him, he heard Karen begin retching weakly, so he relayed this new information to Karen. “I think we’re safe here, but what else can I do for her?”

“Just don’t let her run, no matter what she thinks she sees. And don’t let her hurt herself. Call me if anything changes. And call that ambulance!”

“Of course.” He hung up, which felt like cutting off his own lifeline, and turned back to Karen, who’d scooted miserably a meter or so away from a small puddle of vomit. He crouched beside her again and placed his hand on her shoulder.

She’d only gotten a partial dose, though Emiliano had no way of knowing how high the dose had been originally. But maybe it wouldn’t be as it had been for him and Matty. And she, at least, was not in danger of bleeding out.

“Did you tell Matt?” she whispered.

“Ah…no.” There was no way Matty could get here in time to be of any use. In the meantime, he’d only panic.

She gave a tiny yet definitive nod. “Good.”

“Just remember,” he murmured. “The wall behind you, the floor beneath you, the clothes touching your skin—that’s your reality. And look at me, right in front of you. I’m not a threat. I’m here to help you. Try to remember that, all right?”

Her nod was shakier now. She started to close her eyes.

“No, no.” He lightly cupped her face. “Look at me. You need to focus.”

She muttered something vulgar under her breath, perhaps forgetting how sharp his hearing was. Although he supposed he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d intended him to hear her.

He ignored it. “Deep breaths in and out. Match my pace.” He modeled steady inhales and exhales, pleased as she quickly fell into the same rhythm.

“Do you remember teaching me to meditate?” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging them tight to her chest. “When I had morning sickness?”

Yes, they’d both been unhappy, holed up in his hideout while Matty tried to deal with Dex and Fisk. No surprise that the setup hadn’t lasted. Still. “You were good company, despite your illness.”

She cracked a small, fleeting smile. Then her eyes flicked past him.

“It’s nothing,” he assured her. “I’ll hear if someone’s coming.”

Swallowing, she nodded, and wrenched her gaze back to meet his. “Talk to me. Please?”

He blinked. “About what?”

“Anything, just—I need you to talk to me.”

About what? His time traveling the world and slaughtering the Hand? Not likely. Still unsure what to say, he opened his mouth and surprised himself by talking about his childhood. Well, no, not his childhood itself; but his childhood home. He talked about running down the streets between tall stretches of buildings, about the vibrant trees and foliage, the green Aterno-Pescara river, the glittering expanse of the seam. He talked about hidden caves he’d found, where he and Gio kept their favorite things. Things they didn’t want their father to sell, though he didn’t mention that.

He was describing one of the nature reserves—their grandmother took them there, once—and its fountains when her eyes darted past him again. Her breathing fell out of sync with his; her pupils dilated with fear.

“Karen,” he warned. “Remember who—”

She shot to her feet.

Normally, he might’ve slammed her back against the wall just to keep her in place. But he’d tasted devil’s hell before; he knew that would only scare her more. Instead, he rose with her, setting his hands lightly on her shoulders. “You’re safe, I promise, you’re safe.”

She bit her lip, and then her heartrate spiked. With no more warning than that, she snatched one of his wrists and twisted, driving her forearm against the back of his elbow with enough force to make him take a heavy step forwards, trying to lessen the pressure.

She was trying to break his arm, just the way he’d taught her. She had good form, too, he noted. Just not enough strength, certainly not in the midst of her panic.

She must’ve realized that, because she changed tactics. Her other hand disappeared into her purse.

He froze. “Wait—”

She drew the gun and fired and her aim was good, too, because if he hadn’t thrown himself to the side, he was sure the bullet would’ve passed straight through his heart. As it was, she missed entirely; glass shattered musically somewhere in the store behind him; but she was already leveling the barrel at him again, center mass. She shouted a name, not his, _Wesley_ , and this time he couldn’t get far enough fast enough.

The bullet blazed through his chest. He’d flinched, though, gotten his arm up, and the bullet’s trajectory must have gotten thrown off when it tore through his flesh because it still missed his heart.

At this range, of course, the impact cracked two of his ribs. She’d also inadvertently achieved her original goal of breaking his arm. He was trying not to look at it to tell what kind of break it was; smelling all the blood was bad enough. He was on his knees and a rod of burning metal had replaced his arm and bands of fire had replaced his ribs and he was, quite possibly, about to die.

He’d never found the answers to Claire’s questions.

This couldn’t be the end, then. It simply could not be.

Karen’s gun trembled in her hands. “You deserve it.” She pushed the words through clenched teeth, but they were still loud and clear over the ringing in Emiliano’s ears.

He’d been able to calm Matty down, when Matty was dosed, by holding Matty’s hands to his face, forcing him to recognize him. But Karen was too far away.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped; she started to lower the weapon. “I’m sorry, _shit_ , I’m so sorry, I d-didn’t—I didn’t want—I don’t _know_ , I’m—I’m—I’m—”

“Karen.” He pitched his voice low, kept it as even as he possibly could. “Karen, it’s all right. Put the gun down.”

She squeezed the weapon tighter. “I’m sorry—”

“Please, just put the gun down. I won’t hurt you, no one wants to hurt you.”

“I didn’t—I’m—I’m _not_ sorry, I _wanted_ you dead, you don’t—” Her voice rose. “You don’t get to _touch_ them!” She raised the gun again.

He reached blindly behind him and his fingers closed on something, some fancy antique thing; he threw it, aiming to knock the gun from her hands but the motion tore at his broken ribs and he doubled over, a shout lodged in his throat, and heard his projectile fall harmlessly to the side.

But he’d distracted Karen, just for a second. She lowered the gun again. “What? What? You…” She sounded almost confused, now. “You deserved it. No, no…” She inhaled sharply; he raised his eyes to see tears running down her cheeks. “ _I_ deserve it—”

She raised the gun again, but this time it wasn’t aimed at him.

Emiliano lunged. It was too much too fast and flames ignited through his body; his vision went white then black, but he clung to consciousness as he felt his body crash against hers. She stumbled back and hit the wall and they both slid down in a heap together, tangled together. He blindly caught her wrist, twisted it. She shrieked; he heard gun hit the ground. He kicked it away as she thrashed for freedom.

He pinned her to the floor as his vision slowly returned, swimming back into focus, and forced air into his lungs. “Karen, it’s me!”

For a second, their gazes met. Her voice was barely audible, even for him. “I’m sorry…”

He ignored the ache in his arm and across his ribs and the icy-hot burn from his bullet wound. “No need to ap-apologize,” he gasped, “just let me—”

“I’m sorry!” Her voice rose again, a piercing yell that would draw any attention the gunshots hadn’t. Lunging forward he, clapped his hand over her mouth; she bit him; he pressed his fingers to various points in her temple and neck in such rapid succession that her brain was unable to keep up. With a muted moan, she slumped over sideways, eyes closed.

He sat back, trying not to pant for breath, the taste of blood heavy on the back of his tongue. Her heart still raced. His broken bones were still on fire.

But he couldn’t rest, not yet. Claire would be here soon. He reached for his jacket, still wrapped around Karen. “I need this,” he murmured, just in case she could hear him. “I’m s-sorry.” Pulling it gingerly away from her, he donned the jacket, forcing his numb arm through the sleeve and zipping it up to his throat.

~

Claire

The upside—the one, _singular_ upside—was that she was actually kind of prepared. Getting Vanessa out of the picture hadn’t gotten the drug of the streets, and now she kept benzos with her regularly, as they were the best at calming someone down before the heart wore itself out.

She just really hoped she didn’t get caught speeding.

Neither Emiliano nor Karen struck Claire as particularly _lucky_ , so she chalked it up to divine providence when she didn’t run into any cops. Then she reevaluated when she pulled up to the address from Emiliano’s text to a suspicious lack of emergency vehicles. She burst inside (someone—Emiliano, she suspected—had broken through the front door—to find Karen huddled in a corner in the darkness, face pressed into her knees.

Emiliano was hovering in front of her; relief washed over his face, shockingly transparent, as Claire dropped her bag beside him. “You’re here,” he croaked, voice shaky; he started to stand, only to give up with a bitten-off yelp.

Okay, he was obviously injured, but Karen was still her immediate concern. “No ambulance?”

“I called,” he protested under the weight of her glower. “How long is it s-supposed to take before they get here?”

“They should definitely be here by now,” she growled, but whatever was going on with New York’s ambulances was the least of her concern. She fished the bottle of benzo pills out of her pocket.

But Emiliano’s brow was creased. “Could someone have—” He stopped for breath; alarm klaxons went off in her brain, “—have interfered?”

“They’d have to have _very_ good connections.” She poured two pills into her hand. One patient at a time. “Karen, take these.”

Karen stared at them. “What are they?”

“Medicine. _Take them_.”

“I can make her take them,” Emiliano offered under his breath.

Claire needed to try first. “Karen, listen. They’ll slow your heartrate down so you don’t die. Feel how fast your heart is beating? That’s not good. Just take the pills. You can trust me. You know me.”

Karen bit her lip, but she held out her hand. Claire kept her eyes on her patient until Karen had swallowed the pills dry.

“There,” Claire muttered to Emiliano. “No need to get all ninja-y. How’s her heartrate?”

“One hundred and five,” he reported, staring at Karen.

“Could be worse.” Claire sat back. “She’ll be okay.”

“You’re sure?” Emiliano was still watching Karen.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m still gonna take her to a hospital for monitoring, but…”

Emiliano made a face like he was allergic to hospitals.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to come.” Then…wait. She squinted. Emiliano’s jacket, it looked brand new but it was also…glistening? She reached for him. “Are you all right?”

Standing jerkily, he stepped backwards. “Will you be taking her in your car, then?”

Uh-uh. The only reason he could have for avoiding her was because he was injured and didn’t want her to know it. Karen was fading fast, so Claire stood and advanced on him. “Emiliano.”

His eyes widened like he was trying to look innocent and he protested vaguely about Karen.

Yeah, no way was she falling for that. “Let me look at you.” He looked like he was still thinking about how to avoid her inspection, so she tried a new approach. She softened her voice. “Please.”

A resigned look passed across to her face and she knew she had victory.

Note to self: ordering him around did not work. (Not like it ever worked with Matt either. Maybe something to do with their independence? Or…she stifled a shiver. Maybe something to do with their mentor?)

Looking deeply uncomfortable, Emiliano reached up with his right hand and gingerly tugged the zipper down, then peeled the jacket back. _Peeled_ , because the inside was sticky with coagulating blood.

“The hell happened?” Claire demanded, ducking forward to get a better look.

The heel of his palm caught her shoulder, spinning her off-course. His eyes were shut; he didn’t look like he’d realized how hard he’d pushed. “Don’t. I’m all right.”

“ _I’ll_ decide that.” She stepped in again, and this time he didn’t try to push her back. She hissed through her teeth at the sight of a hole through the side of his chest. “Bullet?”

His face was a shade paler by now. “Wasn’t her fault.”

That did _not_ matter right now. A quick glance at his back showed her the exit wound, so at least the bullet wasn’t still inside. Gritting her teeth, she lit her phone’s flashlight and stepped in close enough to curl her fingers under the hem of his shirt.

Predictably, he flinched. “Claire—”

“I need to see.” Carefully, she pulled his shirt up to reveal skin mottled blue and purple around his ribs. Broken. A jolt of fear lanced through her, even though she knew rationally that the broken ribs couldn’t have punctured anything important or he wouldn’t have been able to pretend to be fine for so long. Still, she had to ask. “What’s the damage?”

He shrugged stiffly, and winced. “It’s fine. They’re just cracked.”

“Broken,” she corrected. “How many?”

He winced again. “Two.”

Well, there wasn’t much she could do about that. “Just to double check—no hospital?”

Gritting his teeth, he shook his head.

She stifled a sigh. “Okay, but I had to ask. I’m gonna bandage your bullet wound for now—” He needed stitches, but there wasn’t time, not if she was going to get Karen to the hospital in time to catch any problems with devil’s hell she might’ve missed, “and I have to set your arm.”

“That’s fine,” he said immediately. “I trust you.”

This was _not_ the time, but the weight of those three words hit her like a ton of bricks. He should not trust her, this strange man who’d been trained by the same person who taught Matt to push everyone he loved away. “Okay,” she said, keeping her voice even. “Come here.”

He obeyed without any hesitation and didn’t even tense up when she set her hands feather-light on his broken arm. His breathing fell into a steady pattern.

“You want anything for the pain?” she asked. She had to check, even though the answer was sure to be—

He half-smiled. “Well, if you’re offering.”

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

He stared back. “What?”

“Just…Matt never takes anything. _Ever_.”

Emiliano’s eyes dropped away. “Ah. I don’t—I don’t _need_ —”

Shit, she shouldn’t have said that. “Shut up, you already agreed.” She could ask about why Emiliano was okay with them when Matt wasn’t later; for now, she dug through her bag until she pulled out more pills to hold out for him.

He shook his head. “I don’t need them. I’m fine.”

Claire resisted the urge to throw her hands up in the air. “It’s not about _need!_ Just take them, will you?”

He clenched his jaw. “Set my arm.”

“I will after you take the pills. They won’t even affect you yet.”

This, bizarrely, stupidly, seemed to make him feel better. Grimacing, he held out his hand, accepting the pills and popping them into his mouth a moment later.

“Thank you.” She tried not to sound too exasperated. Dropping the bottle, she quickly pressed thick bandages to both the entry and exit wounds from the bullet, then traced a finger over his arm where the bone needed to be set. “Here?”

“There,” he confirmed, voice tight.

“Okay. Three, two…”

_Snap._

He sucked in a breath and his eyes squeezed shut as he pressed a hand to his ribs.

“Easy, easy, I’ve got you.” She held onto his shoulders, wishing she could do more to take away the pain. If he’d let her. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” he snapped.

Well, she couldn’t really blame him for being irritable. “All right, so here’s the deal. I need to take Karen to the hospital, and you need to have someone watching over you—”

He scoffed. “I don’t—”

“You wanna get pneumonia and die an anticlimactic death?” She matched his glare. “Didn’t think so. You need to be observed.”

“ _Merda_ ,” he said under his breath.

“Not negotiable,” she said flatly. “So, my place is out since I’m not home half the time. You could stay with Matt and Karen if they’re home enough, or…you’ve been saying with the Valliers?”

He shook his head. “Ella has been through more than enough without dealing with my blood. And…” He lowered his head. “I’ve burdened the Valliers enough already.”

Hmm. Interesting of him to think like that, and interesting of him to care. “Well, the only other thing I can think of at this point is the church where Matt stayed after his accident.”

He stiffened. “No. I’ll go to the clinic.”

What did he have against the church? “I’m afraid that’s not gonna work. You don’t have the right documentation. Or…any documentation, actually. They won’t be able to keep you for more than a day, and before you say anything, that’s not _nearly_ long enough.”

“ _Merda_.”

She tried to smile. “And, hey, you get to see Sister Maggie. She’s cool.”

He did not look like this was good news.

Well, whatever. His options really were limited. “Look, I’ve gotta get Karen to the hospital. Can you get yourself to the church—unless you wanna come with us to the hospital after all?”

“I’ll take her car,” he said dully.

She raised her eyebrows. “With a broken arm and two broken ribs and a _bullet wound?_ I don’t think so. Is Matt on his way?” All she got in answer was a weak shake of the head. Well, she definitely wanted to know why Emiliano wouldn’t want to call Matt when he was injured and Karen was drugged on devil’s hell, but the answer to that wasn’t the priority. She just pulled out her phone and punched in his number, knowing he’d panic when he realized she was calling him. He always answered her calls like she might be in the middle of getting kidnapped again.

And tonight was no different. “Claire?” His voice was pinched and sharp already. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” she said immediately. “But Emiliano and Karen aren’t.”

~

Foggy

He still panicked when he woke up in the middle of the night to a phone call. And he panicked even harder when it was Claire’s number.

This time, though, it wasn’t because Matt was hurt.

No, Claire needed to drive Karen to the hospital, but Matt’s ninja friend had gotten himself hurt on their roadtrip. And, in typical ninja fashion, he’d refused the free ride to the hospital. He’d agreed to go to Matt’s church, though. Not that Matt would be any help getting him there. Hence Claire calling Foggy.

Hence Foggy pulling on a sweatshirt at whatever-time-it-was p.m. and driving Marci’s car out of town to a suicide hotline center. Wait, no, an antique store. That had been broken into.

Foggy _really_ hoped there weren’t security cameras at this place. Still, he didn’t park anywhere close to the building, just to be safe, and pulled his hood over his face before picking his way through the broken front door.

And there was Stone—no, Emiliano, hair damp with sweat, sitting cross-legged on the floor like he was meditating. He didn’t even open his eyes when Foggy came in; he just nodded in greeting. Aw, look, he was wearing the new jacket Foggy and Matt got him.

“Hey,” Foggy said lamely, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “I guess I’m your taxi.”

“I appreciate it,” Emiliano said, barely moving his jaw.

“Can you, uh…” Foggy squinted suspiciously at him. “Can you get up?”

“Of course I can.” To prove it, Emiliano pushed himself to his feet, and made a strangled sound.

Foggy took a few hurried steps closer. There was, uh, a lot of blood on the floor. “Can I help?”

“I’m fine.” To prove it, Emiliano lifted his chin and started walking forward. And, all right, aside from the fact that he was hugging one arm against his chest, he was doing okay with the whole moving thing.

Still, Foggy stayed close behind him. He’d seen Matt’s whole it’s-just-a-flesh-wound routine too many times to count and he knew better than to trust Emiliano’s own assessment of the situation.

But Emiliano didn’t fall; he only stumbled once on the way to the car. He basically melted into the seat, though, and a low moan slipped out from between his lips. Foggy was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have heard it, so he ignored it.

Settling into the driver’s side, Foggy turned the key in the ignition. The car started. He pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road and he realized that this was probably going to be the most awkward road trip of his life.

Maybe he should turn the radio on?

He had questions, though. And Emiliano didn’t have much of a choice but to answer them. Well, unless he passed out or something.

Foggy cleared his throat. “So. What happened?”

Emiliano kept his face aimed straight ahead. “Ambush.”

“Yeah, that part was kinda obvious. Who ambushed you?”

“I don’t know.”

“But they had devil’s hell?” That was what Claire said, anyway. Karen got dosed.

“Apparently.”

“Why didn’t they get you?”

He glanced sideways as he asked, in time to catch a muscle twitch in Emiliano’s jaw. “She didn’t try.”

“Wait, _she?_ ”

Emiliano shrugged.

“Huh.” Foggy looked back at the road. “So, she just left you alone?”

“Apparently.”

“And you didn’t recognize her or anything?”

“No.”

“And you have no idea what she wanted?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know where she went?”

“No.”

“What’s your favorite movie?”

Emiliano’s head swiveled around. “Excuse me?”

“Just trying to get an answer other than ‘no,’’ Foggy explained innocently.

Emiliano retreated into grumpy silence.

“Do you _have_ a favorite movie?” Foggy ventured to ask.

No reply.

Whatever. Foggy gave up on talking.

Once they were within Hell’s Kitchen again, Emiliano miraculously spoke up. “You can stop here.”

Since Foggy was in the middle of the road, he did not stop. “I thought I was taking you to the church.”

“You don’t have to. I’m fine.”

Yeah, no. He was seriously injured. Even if Foggy _hadn’t_ seen all the blood on the floor, the fact that Emiliano had stumbled just walking out of the shop was proof enough that he was seriously hurt. After all, Foggy still remembered watching him and Matt team up against Dex that one time Dex tried to go after Foggy at the restaurant. Foggy was no expert on fighting, but Emiliano had _moves_.

“Foggy,” Emiliano said, voice scratchy.

Foggy’s nickname sounded weird from his mouth. “So where am I supposed to take you, if not to the church?”

“Just drop me off. I can take care of myself.” And, to Foggy’s horror, his hand brushed against the interior door.

Foggy slammed the child lock button.

Emiliano spluttered indignantly. “Did you just—”

“I’m not letting you wander around Hell’s Kitchen like _that!_ You need help, man.”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Emiliano said coolly.

Foggy kept his eyes on the road. “Yeah, sure, but now you have friends.”

No response. And when Foggy snuck a sideways glance at him, he couldn’t quite read the expression on Emiliano’s face.

~

Matt

He couldn’t _believe_ he’d been so naïve. To actually think sending Emiliano and Karen together on a road trip would go _well_. It was just…Emiliano was trying out the whole normalcy thing, and Karen was a mother, and…well, he realized he’d been stupid to think that either of those facts would change the underling fact that Emiliano and Karen couldn’t help but attract danger. When they weren’t actively _chasing_ it.

At least Karen, unlike Emiliano, was willing to go to a hospital. Matt headed straight for Karen’s room at the hospital, but Claire intercepted him before he could burst through the door; she caught his arm, slowing him to a stop.

“She’s okay,” Claire said firmly, “but you barging in there won’t help her stay calm. _You_ have to be calm. Can you be calm?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Matt said distractedly, focusing his senses on Karen. She wasn’t asleep, not quite, but her slow breaths reminded him of how she’d sounded when he taught her to meditate.

“Matt.”

“What?” Matt refocused on Claire, realizing belatedly that he probably wasn’t being very convincing. “Right. No. Calm. I can be calm, I’m calm.”

Claire took a second to study him, then sighed. Leaving her hand on his arm, she cracked open the door, nudging it open inch by inch.

Karen’s head lifted slightly off the stiff hospital pillow, and Matt noted the way some of the tension eased from her muscles when she saw him. “Matt?”

“Me,” he confirmed, coming up to the bed. “How are you?”

Her head sunk back against the pillow. “Tired.”

There was more to it; it was devil’s hell, so he knew there was more to it. But he also didn’t know if it would be better for her to talk about it, or better for her just to rest. He knew _he_ never wanted to talk about it, the fear, the nightmares, even though he needed to. But he didn’t know what she preferred, and he didn’t know what she needed. He took her hand, swiping his thumb gently back and forth over her skin.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Claire murmured.

Matt grabbed her wrist before she could leave. “She’ll be okay?”

“She’ll be okay. I promise.”

Promises were rare from Claire. Matt nodded, forcing himself to believe her. And why shouldn’t he? Claire was an expert. He let her go, let her leave. Then he turned and sat on the side of the bed. Reaching out, he touched the back of his hand gently to Karen’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

She felt so cold to his touch. “I’m not gonna argue with Claire.”

“I’m…not talking about physically.”

Her only response was to turn her face away.

Matt was trying not to remember the nightmares he’d experience in the wake of devil’s hell, but he needed to know what nightmares the drug might’ve awoken for her. “How can I help?”

He smelled salt, but she didn’t bother to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Talk to me?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you’re thinking.”

He wet his lips. He wanted to tell her about Ella and how angry she’d been about losing her dad. Karen was brilliant; she could help him figure out what to say to help Ella understand that…well, not everyone was like Emiliano. Not everyone wanted to change. (Maybe…not everyone _could_ change? But that really didn’t fit with the rest of what Matt believed, so he shoved the question out of his mind. Tried to, anyway.)

But the last thing Karen needed right now was to bear his burdens on top of what she was already going through.

He talked about the rest of the training session instead. About how quickly Ella caught on to the things he was trying to teach her, about how fast Peter was improving, about how thrilled Micah seemed. About how much fun it was for Matt. When he ran out of things to say about that, she asked him to keep going, so he talked about how he and Foggy had taken Emiliano shopping. He’d told her about it already, but now he went into greater detail, lingering over every moment, listening for the slightest sign that he was making her feel better.

Finally, a nurse stepped into the room to let them know that Karen was out of danger. They could go home.

They checked out, and he tried not to be disconcerted by how ghostlike she was, standing silently behind him even though she was far better equipped to fill out the paperwork. She remained silent for the whole cab ride home, and only stopped to mumble, “Gracie,” as they crossed the threshold of the apartment.

“Still with my mom,” Matt assured her. “She says she’s doing great. Don’t worry about her.”

Karen gave him barely a nod in reply, following him listlessly into the bedroom where she sank onto the mattress like her bones had given out, and didn’t react as he worked her shoes off her feet and rubbed warmth back into her toes. Then he crawled onto the bed, facing her. As soon as he set his hand tentatively on her hip, she scooted closer, digging her fingers into his shirt and tucking her head under his chin, pressing her forehead to his chest. Matt wrapped his arms around her smaller frame, doing his very best to shut her away from the world.

They could talk about it tomorrow.

~

They didn’t talk about it tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo for those of you reading my Daredevil/Prodigal Son crossover and maybe wondering why Emiliano handled getting shot better than Matt in that fic...chalk it up to disparate plot requirements? Also I really do think that Matt's senses would make it worse for him. But anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's be real, it's gonna be more than 50 chapters, but that's...ballpark, maybe sorta.
> 
> STRIKE THAT I HAVE NO EARTHLY IDEA HOW MANY CHAPTERS THIS MONSTER WILL HAVE.
> 
> To all of you readers, but especially Elanor__Tasha without whom this fic would absolutely not exist. <3


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